Remnant's Phantom Thieves
by Phoenix Champion
Summary: Huntsmen and Huntresses are trained to protect human's and faunus and abide by the law to do so. The Phantom Thieves on the other hand steal away the corrupt desires of the crooked folks that are avoiding justice one way or another. Both are on the side of the good, though on opposites sides of the law, and of course both side get results.
1. Teaser

***A small red card is seen falling onto the middle of a bare table, the camera zooms onto the card and see's all that on it is a black symbol that consists of a top hat just on top of a eye covering mask, which had one eye set ablaze, below it were the words 'Take your Heart'***

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[Atlas: Goldan family mansion]

[Time: 11:32 P.M.]

[No P.O.V.]

Two men wearing thick black coats with fur edges with hoods drawn over their heads are standing guard at the front door of a large Atlesian mansion, they were holding Altas Standard issue Assault Rifles and were wearing goggles to keeps the currently falling snow out of their eyes.

"Man I gotta get onto the day shift soon." One of them said all of a sudden, "I mean I haven't spent much time with my wife and daughter since I took this job"

The other guard looked at his partner, "You might be in luck. I heard that that Mister Goldan has started to change out all his night shift guards for Atlesian Knights. I even hear he's gotten himself a few of the newer models for the more important locations." The other said.

"You think that's a good idea?" The first guard asked, "I mean, yeah he doesn't really have to pay a robot a salary, but truth be told I never really trusted machines. They could get hacked or broken or glitched or all sorts of things. As much as I'd like day shift I think Mr. Goldan's getting a little careless in his defenses by having a bunch of robots handle more and more of them."

"Personally, while I don't care about working the night shift, I wouldn't mind a Knight taking over this post. I haven't had feeling in my toes for a week now." The other guard said.

"You should probably get that checked out." The first guard pointed out.

What the guards were unaware of was that there was a figure running across the arches in front of the building.

[OST: P5: Life Will Change]

The figure was that of a young man with shaggy black hair, he wore an open chested black trench coat with a tail that was cut into three parts over gray collared shirt, black trousers, brown cuban heeled boots, and a pair of red gloves. Over his face the man wore a white bird shaped mask with black interior that covered only his eyes.

The man then ran across the arch and jumped onto a balcony of the building and easily pushed the glass doors open.

"Glad to see Goldan didn't realize he should check to make sure everything was locked when he left for his little vacation." A young girls voice said within the man's head. "Alright Joker, you remember when the target was right?"

The now named Joker smirked, "I remember Oracle." Joker said quietly as he slipped into what appeared to be the master bedroom.

"Good, Queen and Mona will be waiting by the garage for the escape, while Fox, Panther, Skull and Noir will meet up with you after you've gotten the target and will cover you on your escape." the now named Oracle said.

Joker nodded and quietly pushed open the door out of the bedroom, before peeking out the the side.

On his left was an Atlesian Knight Model #130, it's back turned to him.

Joker smirked as he quickly leapt onto the Knight's shoulders and pulled out his weapon, a small single edged dagger, and quickly stabbed the AK in the underside of the head before tearing upward, disabling the droids vocal systems before disabling the droid altogether.

Joker jumped off the falling AK dashed to the corner of the hall, peeking over he saw another Knight, this one not looking in his direction, and several tables between him and it.

Smirking Joker dashed into the shadows of one of the tables, becoming coated in the shadows of the table. Joker then dashed from table to table in a black blur, soon enough reaching the AK, which had turned around to check the other side of the hall, completely moving past Joker without noticing him.

Dashing out of his hiding spot Joker ran down the hall before turning into the library, shutting the door behind him and running toward a small bust of a young woman's head and chest. Joker grabbed the lower jaw of the woman and pulled it down, which actually revealed it to be a hidden switch as one of the nearby bookshelves pushed forward at an angle slightly.

"Why do big mansions like these always have secret rooms in the library?" Oracle asked rhetorically, "Well, at least the guy didn't move the thing."

Joker stepped into the hidden room and walked over to a small wooden box in the middle of the room, which was surrounded by a case of glass, "I don't see a switch or anything." Joker mused.

"Then that means the glass isn't locked down." Oracle said, "No... He's installed a DNA scanner on the glass, there's no way we're taking that without triggering an alarm."

"Where are Skull, Panther, Fox, and Noir?" Joker asked quietly.

"Close enough." Oracle said, "Ready to run?"

Instead of replying Joker pulled out his dagger again, however in less than a second a casing shot up over the edge of the dagger as if folded down to the back, then the blade extended forward a fair bit, this had caused the dagger to look like nothing more than a simple handgun.

Joker then smashed the glass with the gun, which caused an alarm to sound throughout the mansion, and quickly grabbed the small box and tucked it under his arm just as two AK130's burst into the library and saw him in the hidden room.

"Intruder, identify yourself and put down the property in your hands." One of the said.

Joker's answer came in the form of a sudden bullet being fired from his gun, which wasn't silenced apparently. The bullet tore through the head of one of the AK's disabling it.

"Intruder, you have committed a hostile action, prepare for-" The other started, but was cut off by a shotgun blast that tore off half it's back, more than enough to disable it.

"You're not slacking are you? You could have totally taken both down without my help." Said the newcomer.

Like Joker this was a young man, however he hand short, spiky, blonde hair and was wearing a black leather jacket and black pants that had knee pads, a red ascot, combat boots, a pair of yellow gloves, on his face was a dark grey mask shaped like a skull, minus a lower jaw.

In his hands was a pump action shotgun, however with a quick flick of his arm the barrel closed off and the pump of the shotgun split into four segments that shifted to the end of the barrel and ended up the same distance around the barrel from each other, the former pump of the shotgun then segmented further and flipped around to reveal ridges that reconnected to form a club that would certainly hurt to be hit by. This change took less than a second to happen.

"Figured you'd like a shot at them Skull." Joker said smirking.

"Whatever. You got it?" The now named Skull asked, and was given the answer by Joker lifting the box he had taken, "Nice, now let's go before more trouble gets here."

With that Joker and Skull ran out of the room, soon finding two more destroyed AK130's, one that was cut clean in half, the other had several dozen bullet holes in it, and two more people standing over them.

The first was yet another young man, this one with dark blue hair. He wore a black jumpsuit that had a high upturned collar on it and baggy forearms, white motorcycle boots that reached his knees, blue gloves on his hands, a blue and white striped waist sash, and clipped to the back of that sash was a a long white fox tail that had a red ribbon wrapped around it on his face was a white fox mask that covered his whole face.

In his hands was a katana that was sheathed, said sheath had a trigger just near the hilt, which so long as the sword was sheathed, could have the weapon spun around to double as an assault rifle given that part of the sheath can be removed to change out the weapons magazine, that part of the sheath is wider than the rest of it.

The other figure was a woman with long pale blonde hair that was tied up in wavy ponytails. Her outfit was a skin tight red leather catsuit worn with a matching red panther mask that cover her upper face, it had a cleavage cutout, several zippers on the front and with it she wore pink gloves that almost reached her elbows and dark red thigh-high boots clipped to her lower back, just under her tail bone, was a panther's tail the same color as her suit.

In her hand was an SMG, but with a quick flick of her hand it segmented into a long whip, leaving the trigger and ammo magazine with it's grip.

"I suppose there wasn't a way to get the box without triggering an alarm?" The one with the fox tail asked.

"Fox, if he could have avoided the alarm he wouldn't have triggered it." The cat suited woman said.

"I suppose you're right, Panther." Fox admitted. "But we had better clear out before the police arrive."

"Noir's on her way to the garage right now." Oracle announced to the group, "You guy's had better get there too."

The group nodded to each other before sprinting down the hall, no longer caring just how much noise they made, and any AK130 that did come in front of them was shot down.

The group then arrived at the doors that were no doubt the garage, in front of it they saw a young woman cut one last AK130 in half with a battle axe.

The woman had curly chin length hair that a light auburn color, which was hidden under a mauve cavalier hat with a plumed feather, she had on a long sleeved light pink blouse with a cravat, black corset vest, puffy mauve shorts, black pantyhose with identically colored shoes, a holster belt carrying ammo, more specifically grenade launcher rounds, with her hands covered in purple gloves, on her face was a black bandits mask that covered her eyes.

Her battle axe had only one blade, but a long handle and where the second blade would have been was a chamber for grenades, as she rested it on her shoulder it easily collapsed down to a grenade launcher.

"Nice one Noir." Skull cheered out.

"These things are easy compared to Shadows." The now name Noir said with a grin on her face, "Even the Grimm are tougher than these guys."

"That's for sure." Oracle said, "Wait... I'm getting a reading from the other side of that door."

"An actual human guard?" Noir asked aloud, as all the group could hear Oracle.

"No, I'm sensing a strong Aura, I'm thinking a Huntsman." Oracle said.

"What? You mean Goldan's had a Huntsman in his back pocket this whole time?" A new female voice said from Oracles side, "Mona, get the van ready, we're coming for a pick up."

"Oh no." Oracle moaned.

The group within the building nodded to each other as Joker kicked the door to the garage open.

Inside were two of the new model AK200's, much sleeker and brighter than the 130's, however standing between them was a woman with white hair that was tied up in an off center bun, uniformed in a white coat with a red brooch covering her neck, her coat left part of her upper arms exposed and she had black gloves covering her hands, garter belts being incorporated into her pants. In this woman's hands was a white sabre that had dust chambers built into it.

"The hell?" Skull asked, "She's an Atlesian Specialist! The hells she doing playing security guard?"

"Who might you be?" Joker asked as he put his hands in his pockets, keeping his voice level.

The woman narrowed her eyes, "Atlesian Specialist Winter Schnee. I'm here to bring you in for your breaking and entering, as well as robbery."

"Schnee?" Joker asked, "How's your father been doing?"

Winter narrowed her eyes, "I'm not the one who's going to be answering questions here." Winter said, "But I'm going to be bringing you in, get them."

One of the AK200's lifted it's rifle to begin firing, however Skull was faster as he rushed in to kick the 200 in the face, knocking it back and messing up it's aim before caving it's head in with his club.

The other aimed at Joker, only for its gun to be ripped from its hands by Panther's whip, and was soon destroyed as well by gunfire coming from Fox's weapon.

Winter glared at the offending group before rushing in to attack Joker, who jumped to the side to dodge her initial stab and quickly switched his weapon to dagger mode to block a slash from her.

Winter pressed her weapon against Joker's until she was knocked slightly to the side by a shotgun blast from Skull, allowing Joker to back flip away and shift his weapon into a pistol to fire at her.

Winter pulled a second, smaller blade from the first one and used both of them to block the bullet's until Joker's clip ran dry.

Winter then created a Glyph that summoned an Alpha Beowolf that charged at the group while she got back up.

Noir smirked and pulled her grenade launcher off her back and fired once, blasting away the Summoned Grimm.

"Why don't you take off your mask?" Winter growled, "Stop hiding behind those things like the criminals you are and turn yourselves in!"

Joker smirked, "Fine, I'll take off the mask." Joker said reaching up to his mask, "Just remember you asked for it."

Winter raised an eyebrow at this and braced herself for anything Joker could pull.

"Come forth, Arsene!" Joker shouted as he tore off his mask, the mask shattering and burning away in blue flames, Jokers face was also still covered in blue flames, obscuring his identity.

Winter jumped back at the sudden appearance of the flames, but soon enough that didn't matter as a chill ran down her spine at a sinister laughter filled the garage.

Blue flames emerged from behind Joker, which formed a rather intimidating figure, it was larger that Joker, it had a black torso like an vest with a white cravat on it's neck, its arms were covered in a long sleeves red vest that reached it's clawed hands, it's legs had on leggings that covered the entirety of its legs, but not the waist and had boots with blades posing as long heels, two large black feathered wings on it's back, a ridiculously tall top hat on it's head. Said head was completely covered by a sinister black mask with red eyes and mouth and had two long horns curling to the front of its face.

"Arsene! Eiha!" Joker commanded as he grabbed hold of the chain and swung it forward, which caused Winter to focus once again on the fight, only for a red and black mass of energy to burst up from below her, tearing out a chunk of her Aura and knocking her back down to the ground.

The being Joker referred to as Arsene faded as Joker's mask reformed on his face, and while Winter was on the ground the five thieves shifted their weapons into their respective gun forms and pointed them at Winter's head, surrounding her and keeping a decent distance to prevent her from disarming them should she retaliate.

"What's the Atlas Military doing here?" Joker demanded, "Last I checked they don't exactly do mercenary work."

Winter scoffed and looked around, noticing her predicament as her Aura wouldn't exactly be able to hold up if they started to open fire, "We aren't, but when Goldan came up to us saying that is was the Phantom Thieves that were targeting him we decided to make an exception just this once." Winter admitted.

"So the reason you're playing security guard is because it's us?" Noir asked, "Don't know know what Goldan did less than half a month ago?"

"I don't care about that!" Winter snapped, "I volunteered the moment I heard it was you all."

"Really? You're still on about that?" Skull asked, "Sheesh that was almost half a year ago, lay off it already, besides shouldn't you be thanking us for what happened afterwards?"

"Thanking you!?" Winter shouted, "You-"

"Goldan recently robbed the Chieftain of Kou Kuana just a few weeks ago." Fox said suddenly, "While he can't do anything now that Goldan has returned to Atlas, because Atlas favor's it's rich and human over the poor and the Faunus, we can."

"So, you were hired to steal it back then?" Winter asked.

"No, we came of our own choice." Joker said, "In fact, Oracle should have sent General Ironwood incriminating evidence about Goldan by now."

"What?" Winter asked surprise.

At that moment the garage door to the outside is busted down by a black van backing up into it, the black van has a yellow stripe going down the middle, it also curiously had a cat tail and cat ears poking out of it.

The back door of the van burst open to reveal a woman with long orange hair wearing a mask that looked like large black goggles with orange lenses, she wore a skintight black bodysuit with fluorescent neon green glowing strips and matching black boots with neon green soles.

"Get in!" The woman shouted, her voice revealing that she was Oracle.

"Don't need to tell me twice." Skull shouted, blasting the ground near Winter to keep her off balance and allowed the group to jump into the van.

"Who's driving?" Panther asked.

"Queen." Oracle said.

The groups head than swiveled to the woman at the steering wheel, she had short brown hair in a bob cut, she wore a skintight black leather suit that is worn with a long black scarf, shoulder and knee pads with spikes with white gloves on he hands, on her face was an iron mask that covered her upper face with cut outs to reveal her reddish brown eyes.

"Oh crap." Skull said.

"Guys you better hold on!" A boyish voice called from within the front of the van, "We all know about Queen's road rage when driving out."

"Quit complaining Mona, we don't have time for safe driving." Queen retorted as she hit the gas pedal, sending the Van that was apparently Mona driving ahead at full speed, the tracks were soon covered by the falling snow, making tracking them impossible.

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 **Well folks, this ended up being long than I expected for a teaser.**

 **Now I just want to say it will be a while before I actually start writing this story, because I want to run a few of my other stories to the Wall of Canon, plus I want to watch a full playthrough of Persona 5.**

 **Someone on Youtube has to be either unaware or ignoring Atlus's little LP/Livestream demands.**

 **Truth be told I can't tell which is a better punishment for spoilers being release, getting a warning from Atlus, or Nintendo taking away something from us like they did with Smash Bros.**

 **Anyway, I'll see you all at a later time.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Hello my dear readers, Phoenix Champion here with the first official chapter of Remnant's Phantom Thieves.**

 **Now I haven't finished watching a playthrough of the game just yet (Mainly because of the internet being a dick with long videos, and said video's getting long because the guy I'm watching has had more than his fair share of derp moments) Meaning certain personalities (Mainly Haru's) I might not get exactly right, in which case, I'm sorry.**

 **Anyway I've kept you all waiting long enough for this story, I'll see you at the end.**

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[OST: Persona 5: Aria of the Soul]

Akira Kurusu, a young man with shaggy black hair woke up and noticed he was definitely not in his bed, nor was he wearing what he went to sleep in. He was wearing what he knew to be his winter casual wear, a black jacket over a white v-neck shirt, with blue jeans and grey pants.

Looking around the room he noticed that it was almost entirely a shade of velvet blue, there were no windows in the room, but several beds, each one having someone he recognized on it.

On the first be he saw his friend Ryuji Sakamoto, a man his age with short, but spiky hair that was dyed blonde, wearing his usual winter wear, an open purple coat that had red stripes on the arms over a black shirt that had a yellow face emote face on it, he also had on black pants with a white stripe on the sides, and finished with yellow and white sneakers.

On the next bed was Ann Takamaki, a woman his age with long blonde hair that was tied into two ponytails, she was wearing a red jacket with a 'S' on the chest, it also had long pale beige sleeves on it, she was also wearing a white skirt over black leggings, and red sneakers.

On the next was Yusuke Kitagawa, a man his age with deep blue hair at a mid length, wearing a brown suit like shirt with thin black lines on it over a pink tinged shirt, he wore black pants and black shoes, dangling from his waist was a collection of keys, one's Akira never really figured out what the meaning of them were.

On the next was Makoto Nijima, a woman a year older than him with brown hair in a bob cut, she was wearing a light blue coat that had two sets of buttons on it over a black turtleneck, and and black pants thigh high brown boots on her feet.

On the next bed was Futaba Sakura, a woman a year younger than him with long orange hair, she was wearing a blue-green coat with a furred collar, however it was slipped partially down her arms, revealing she was wearing a black tank top under her white shirt, which also had it sleeves down her arms, she also had on black shorts that had a belt dangling from her right side, with black stockings over black boots. On a table next to her were her large round glasses.

Looking around Akira was getting a bit worried until he noticed that on his bed there was a second person, Haru Okumura, his girlfriend that was one year older than him, with curly chin length auburn hair, she was wearing a slightly puffed gray coat with a wool collar and a pink skirt, as well as white leggings and red shoes on her feet.

Noticing there was someone missing from the group Akira looked around before he noticed a familiar schoolbag sitting next to his glasses, he unzipped it to reveal Morgana the cat/escape vehicle, Morgana was a black cat with a white mouth and white paws with a white tail tip. He wore nothing but a yellow collar.

After seeing the rest of the group known as the Phantom Thieves of Heart in the same room, with a calming tinge of velvet blue in the area, Akira knew where he was.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room." Said the nasally and high pitched voice of the real Igor.

Turning to the source Akira saw Igor, a man with thin arms and legs wearing a black suit and white gloves, with a balding head and a mid length white hair near the back, the more noticeable features on his face was... well, the man's nose was almost as long as the man's whole hand. He was sitting at a square table in the middle of a small room ahead of me.

"It has been a while has it not Akira." Came the voice of a woman beside Igor, a woman with long platinum blonde hair and glowing yellow eyes, she was a little short, and wore a velvet blue dress with a blue frilled head band like one worn by french maids, and it had to half butterfly clips on each side of the band, in her hands was a massively thick tome.

"Igor, Lavenza." Akira said nodding to the two.

"It is good to see you again Akira." Igor said, "Granted we have not really met too often considering the circumstances of your journey."

"Before we continue, I believe it would be best if we woke your friends." Lavenza said as she lifted her book, 'Le Grimoire' before abruptly dropping it on the table with a loud slam.

"Gwah!" Ryuji cried out before the sound of a thud was heard, him falling out of the bed.

"Wha-!?" Ann cried out as she jerked upward.

Makoto and Yusuke woke up with nothing more than a gasp.

"I'm awake!" Futaba shouted as she lurched up.

"Akira!?" Haru cried out, clearly we know who she was dreaming about.

"MRRREEEOOWW!" Morgana cried out as he shot out of the bag.

The sound even made Akira jump, and he knew it was coming, Igor on the other hand gave no reaction, save for grabbing he table with his free hand to keep it from shaking too much.

"What the- Where are we?" Ryuji asked as he got up.

"You are in the Velvet Room, Phantom Thieves." Lavenza said as several chairs appeared in front to the table Igor sat at.

"Wait... is that the real Igor sitting there?" Ann asked as she took a seat.

"I can assure you I am the real Igor." Igor assured, "I have called you here as my master has asked for a favor."

"Your master?" Yusuke asked, "So you are not the master of this place then?"

"No, I am merely its caretaker." Igor said, "My master however has chosen to step back from the affairs of the Velvet Room for a time, not directly helping unless it is absolutely necessary."

"So why are we here then?" Akira asked.

"As I have said, my master has asked for a favor." Igor said as Lavenza set a map on the table, "Take a look at this map."

The group leaned into the map and looked at it closely.

"This ain't a map of Earth." Ryuji said flatly.

"These continents... two of them look similar to dragons" Yusuke said.

"I can see that actually." Ann said.

"This map." Igor said, "Is of a world known as Remnant, and humanity of that world is at risk of extinction."

"What?" Makoto asked, "What's going on there?"

Igor waved his hand over the map, changing it to form shadowy figures with glowing red eyes, "The Creatures of Grimm," Igor said, "Dark beings that are attracted to negative emotions, they've existed in Remnant for centuries and humanity has adapted to combat them, however that is not the case for too much longer."

"What do you mean?" Haru asked.

Igor closed his eyes, "The Grimm have a leader." He said waving his hand over the paper once again, changing it to the vague shape of a woman with pure red and black eyes, "She's become active, gathered enough pawns you could say, leading the Grimm as though they were an army. However that is only the tip of the problem, and why I have asked you instead of other groups of Persona users." Igor said waving his hand over the paper once again.

"The people of Remnant are divided into two distinct races." Lavenza said, "Humans and Faunus."

"Faunus?" Morgana asked hopping onto the table.

"Yes, beings that look human in every way, but with the addition of having a single animal trait on their bodies." Lavenza said, "I myself have not fully determined what classifications of animals are not among faunus, as there are so many variations."

Akira was the first to put the pieces together, "Faunus are treated poorly aren't they?" Akira asked.

"Indeed." Igor said chuckling, "Rather astute of you to come to that conclusion, but yes, this internal strife has resulted in negativity that has truly rallied the Grimm faster than a single leader."

"This racism among the two races has not only attracted the Grimm," Lavenza continued, "But in turn it has also caused internal strife that has boiled into blatant terrorism."

"What!?" Ann shouted, "Terrorism!?"

"Are they really fighting each other rather than a common enemy?" Futaba asked incredulously.

"Unfortunately yes." Igor said grimly, "And because of this the Grimm have grown even stronger." Igor sighed as Lavenza removed the paper, flicking it back into a map.

"There are figures in the Four Kingdoms of Remnant that have most of the blame for the rampant racisme pinned upon them." Lavenza said.

"So... you want us to change their hearts?" Akira asked.

"Correct." Igor said, "Both sides of humanity can benefit much from a sudden stop in aggression from one or both sides. Furthermore by changing the hearts of one of the Grimm Queen's pawns you could sway the hand of fate further to the side of humanity."

"Wait, what about our lives here!?" Ryuji cried out.

"Do not worry." Igor said, "My master has already prepared for this. Should you choose to assist Remnant doppelgangers of yourselves shall be sent back to your home to live your lives as if this meeting never happened. They will be, on all accounts, no different than the real ones."

"Can we have a moment to think about this?" Yusuke asked.

"Of course you can." Igor said leaning back, "Take all the time you need."

The group of 8 pulled each other into a close huddle, a serious discussion flowing between them. On one hand, agreeing to this basically meant they'd be walking away from their lives here, and judging by how...well made...their doppelgangers will be, likely forever. But on the other hand...could they really leave an entire world to a fate of ruin by doing nothing?

The discussion became more serious, but after a few moments they broke apart, looks of determination now on their faces.

"We'll help." Akira said, "But without the Metaverse we won't be able to do much about changing people's hearts."

Igor smiled, a mix of his usual expression and a hint of pride at their answer. "My master is already working on reforming the Metaverse for your use." Igor said, "And do not worry about being undefended in Remnant. Once you arrive you'll find that my master has already prepared several gifts for you."

"Also, your Yen will be of no use to you in Remnant." Lavenza said holding out your hands, "May I see your credit cards?"

Everyone but Morgana quickly reached into their pockets and pulled out their wallets before pulling out several cards and handing them to Lavenza.

"Thank you." Lavenza said putting the cards into her tome and closing it, "You'll be transported to outside city walls, a fair distance away in fact. Once you arrive at the nearest city I will return these to use with currency that would be useful in Remnant."

"Wait, outside city walls?" Ryuji asked, "Are you just throwing us to the wolves here!?"

"Think about it for a moment you numbskull." Morgana snapped in annoyance. Even if things had gotten better between them over the years...Morgana still had a bit of a sharp tongue regarding Ryuji's moments of talking before thinking. "If we showed up in the middle of a city, how are we supposed to explain ourselves for showing up out of nowhere?!"

Ryuji sat down at that, "Oh yeah, hadn't thought about that." He admitted.

"We may need to think of cover stories for when we get to the nearest city." Yusuke pointed out.

"Where will we arrive?" Haru asked.

"You'll be arriving in the frozen kingdom of Atlas." Igor said, "Furthermore among those gifts my master will have for you are heavier coats for the weather."

"Are you ready to go?" Lavenza asked.

Akira nodded, before the room faded into a blue light.

 **[[]]**

 **I'm thinking I'm gonna stop here for the night.**

 **This honestly took longer to write than I was hoping and I'm still a little annoyed about events that happened in my personal life today.**

 **Don't worry, when next chapter comes around there will be action.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Well folks, don't know when you're gonna get this... Mainly because I don't know how long I plan to go on in writing this chapter, plus I do have to find apt descriptions of the Persona's for this story.**

 **Yeah I promised you guys some action in this chapter and you will get it.**

 **Anyway I hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see you at the end.**

 **[[]]**

[Remnant: Atlas snowfields]

As their vision returned, Akira and his friends noticed several things.

One, there was a lot of snow around the area, as well as some trees to their left.

Two, Akira noticed they were in their Phantom Thieves attire. Akira was now more recognizable as Joker, Ryuji as Skull, Ann as Panther, Yusuke as Fox, Makoto as Queen, Futaba as Oracle, and Haru as Noir.

Three, Morgana the cat slash Mona the mascot like cat was missing, instead there was someone else standing where Morgana once was.

The person was boy at the age of 16, three years younger than Akira. He had rather pale skin, with the entire upper half of his head being covered by a black mask that left his blue eyes revealed, as well as a couple of holes on top of his head for little black cat ears to poke out of. Around his neck was a yellow scarf, he also wore a black long sleeves shirt that was complemented by white gloves on his hands, separating his black pants from his legs was a black utility belt that had a pouch on both sides of his hips buttoned up front by two yellow buttons, on his feet he wore knee high white boots.

"What the..." The boy asked in Morgana's high pitched voice.

"Morgana?" Ann asked in surprise.

"I'm... I'm HUMAN!" Morgana cheered throwing his fist up in the air and jumping into the air as well.

"Perhaps this is one of the gifts Igor was talking about." Yusuke said putting a hand on his chin.

"I wouldn't exactly say you're human Morgana." Ryuji muttered.

"Huh?" Morgana asked suddenly stopping his cheering.

"That looks so cute." Futaba said as she walked up behind Morgan and began to scratch him just behind his cat ears.

"YAAaaaaa!" Morgana shouted in surprise to the sudden, though somewhat familiar feeling.

"So Morgana's a Faunus now." Haru said, remembering what Lavenza said. "I wonder if he can still turn into a cat," she mused.

"Guys, our outfits." Akira said suddenly.

"Huh?" Ryuji said looking at Akira, only to notice his Thieves attire, "Oh crap, codenames everyone!"

"Wha- Whoa what are we doing in these?" Panther asked looking at herself.

"Another of those gifts I'll bet." Mona said smiling, "This mean we can pull off heists in the real world now too."

"At least we have our weapons in case those Grimm show up." Queen said as she held up her fist, which were gripping a set of Tekko and threw a test punch to readjust herself to the weight of the weapon.

"Where'd you find that?" Skull asked.

"In the snow." Queen said, hooking her tekko to her waist and reaching into the snow pile at her feet to pull out a long barreled revolver.

Noir reached into the snow by her feet and pulled out a single bladed battle axe and a single shot grenade launcher from the snow before hooking the both of them to her back.

Panther dug through the snow unto she pulled up an SMG and a chain whip, giving the whip a crack before smirking at the fact she could still swing it.

Skull dug around through the snow until he pulled out a wooden bat that had barbed wire wrapped around it and nails running through it as well as a pump-action shotgun.

Fox reached into the snow and pulled out a sheathed katana as well as an assault rifle, strapping the latter to his back and holding the former by it's sheath.

Mona reached into the snow and dug around for a moment before pulling out a scimitar and a slingshot. Pulling a perfectly round stone from one of his pouches he took aim at a tree with the slingshot. A loud snap later and a small hole appeared in the tree, going three fourths of the way into the tree.

Joker didn't have to worry about searching for his weapons, he could feel them in his coat, just to make sure he pulled out a single edge knife of considerable size and a simple handgun.

"Well." Oracle said, "At least you guys are armed if we run across some Grimm."

"Yeah, and you can just zip out of the way so we don't have to worry about you." Skull said.

"Yep." Oracle said smirking, then she adjusted her mask before taking another look at Skull.

"Umm... You're creeping me out here Oracle." Skull said backing up a step.

"Why are you looking at Skull so intensely?" Noir asked.

"I can sense your ultimate Persona." Oracle said, "But I'm also sensing your original one."

"Wait, what?" Skull asked.

"It seems that we have access to both stages of our Persona's now." Fox said, "Another of those gifts I believe... This could actually prove beneficial."

"What do you mean?" Panther asked.

"Easy." Joker said, "If we have to fight in this world, you guys can fight using your initial Personas, making anyone who's out to get us think we're weaker than we really are."

"And then when we get into a fight with a tough opponent we can use their lack of information against them." Queen said, "Making them panic at the fact it's a new Persona we're using."

"And in turn they try to come up with a new battle plan thinking that the weaknesses of our original Persona's don't apply to the new ones." Mona said, "Then again, Joker can just change up the whole fight to swing into his favor anytime he wants."

"Actually, we may need to get into a Palace or Mementos when Igor tells us we can go back into them." Oracle said, "I'm only sensing two persona's with Joker instead of the usual ten or twelve he keeps close on him."

"That just leaves me with Arsene for now then." Joker said.

"Not like that'll be much of a hinderance." Skull chuckle, "I mean we beat the crap out of a god. A fake god, but still."

"Technically it was Joker who defeated Yaldabaoth." Fox said.

"Don't kill the mood." Skull deadpanned.

"Guys... I'm hearing something from those bushes." Mona said setting his sword on his shoulder and crouching into his combat stance.

"I'm getting readings." Oracle said taking position behind the rest of the Phantom Thieves, "They're dark, animalistic, and bloodthirsty. I think those are the Grimm."

From the tree line red eyes flashed into view, stepping from the tree's was a human sized werewolf shaped creature with thick black fur and bone-like plates on its body.

"Alright, those things are called 'Beowolves' and there are a lot of them." Oracle said gripping her mask, "Necronomicon!" Oracle shouted tearing off the mask, causing blue flames to cover her face.

[Persona 5 OST: Will Power]

Appearing directly above Oracle in a flash of blue flames was Necronomicon, a green tinted UFO that had a gargoyle on top of it. A hatch directly under the Persona opened up, causing five tentacles to slid out and wrap around Oracles arms, legs, and waist before lifting her up inside of it, Oracles not struggling in the slightest and instead shifted into a more comfortable position.

"That still manages to unsettle me." Skull admitted before he turned to the Beowolves, which had now grown to a group of seven, "Let's go, Captain Kidd!" Skull shouted ripping his mask off.

Appearing in a burst of blue flames behind skull Captain Kidd, a Persona with a light blue shirt that showed it to be rather thin, on its chest were a pair of crossing swords with chains hanging from the guards of the cutlasses and anchors charms at the end of each chain, on its shoulders were black shoulder guards that attached to a black twin tailed coat that was tattered with a red interior, it's left hand was golden and clawed with a black cuff on the wrist, it's right hand had a similar cuff but instead of a hand there was a golden cannon. On its legs were a pair of thin black pants and similar boots, however what it stood on took was a pirates ship the same size at it, looking almost authentic save for the angry eyes and sharp toothed mouth painted on the bow of the ship.

"Let 'em have it Captain!" Skull shouted pointing at the middle Grimm, "Assault Drive!"

Captain Kidd swung his ship around and toward the Beowolf that he pointed at, which was too shocked at the sight of the Persona, and was soon killed when Captain Kidd's cannon smashed into its face.

"Whoa, I forgot having a Persona use those moves takes a drain on my stamina." Skull said as his mask reformed from Captain Kidd vanishing.

"Suck it up Skull." Mona said gripping his mask, "Come, Zorro!"

After Mona tore his mask off Zorro appeared, A towering figure with a massive chest covered by a black suit that also covered his massively muscular arms and black gloves, separating this massive upper body from it's lower was a belt marked by a buckle with a large silver 'Z', going lower it's legs were remarkably thin and covered by black pants and spur heeled black boots. In it's right hand was a normal sized rapier that looked to be too small for his hands, but was still held with ease. On his rather small head was a helmet that covered all but his large yellow eyes. On its back was a black cape.

"Heal him up Zorro, Diarama!" Mona commanded.

Zorro turned to Skull before swinging his rapier in a 'Z' shape, causing green energy to form around the thief and healed up what damage he self inflicted to attack.

"Thanks." Skull said.

"My turn." Fox said grabbing his mask, "Come, Goemon!"

With the mask torn off, Goemon appeared, a tall male figure wearing a blue robe with blue and white ropes on his shoulders tying off behind his back on his waist was a red sash held in place by red and white rope acting as a belt with two bells on it, on its feet were white tabi that were wearing a pair of geta with tall stilts on them. It's face was white and outlined light blue, with a black pompadour style of hair on it's head. In one of it's white hands was a japanese pipe large and long enough to be considered a sword, and yet was held like a in his hands, resting on a finger as if her were about to take a smoke.

"Goemon, freeze them, Bufula!" Fox commanded.

Goemon held a hand forth as he raised his pipe, causing a burst of ice to freeze a Beowolf before shattering, killing the Grimm in an instant.

"Let's go Johanna!" Queen shouted tearing her iron mask off while spinning and lifting a leg into the air.

With good reason too, as Johanna wasn't a humanoid figure floating above Makoto, but instead sat under her as a silver plated motorcycle that had a plate on the front wheel, and in front of the handles was what appeared to be a woman's face with her eyes closed and covered by a blue dome. When Makoto revved Johanna the standard revving sound could be heard, but it was also overlayed by a sound similar to vibrating glass.

"Marakukaja!" Makato shouted as she revved Johanna once more and spun the Persona, this in turn caused a flash of purple energy to shoot up beneath her and the rest of the Phantom Thieves still on the ground, buffing the teams defense.

"Allow me." Noir said stepping forward and grabbing her mask, "Come Milady!" Noir commanded tearing off her mask.

Appearing behind the thief was Milady, a feminine figure wearing a black and pink Victorian style dress, with red and pink vertical striped puffs on the sleeves of the dress that extends to its elbows and was wearing pink gloves. The bottom of the dress was a pink color with golden trim around the dress, which had a golden lip on the center of the dress that made it vaguely resemble a smiling face. There were black and red curtain drapes around the dress underneath, a pink heart shaped frill around her waist with a red bow tied on the drapes and a knife next to on the center of the heart shaped frill. Milady also had no head, instead her face was represented by a pink mask inset with yellow eyes that was on a stick held by her right hand, she held a yellow and pink colored fan with black fur in her left hand.

"Alright, Triple Down Milady!" Noir announced.

Milady's dress opened up down the middle, which revealed frightening metal contraption that looked like a jack-o-lanterns face, which the jaw of opened up and extended from it a missile, bazooka, and two gatling guns, before the gatling guns opened fire on the Grimm, shredding them in bullets as they tried to figure out just what was going on.

"Guys!" Oracle called to the the thieves from within the pocket dimension within Necronomicon, which had her floating in the middle of several holographic screen surrounding her in blackness, "These things are wolves right? Mammals? Lots of fur to keep warm. Burn them see if you get a reaction."

"I got it!" Panther shouted grabbing her mask, "Lets go Carmen!"

Tearing her mask off conjured her Persona, Carmen. A beautiful feminine figure with violet skin, and wearing a black corset decorated with deep red hearts running down the black sleeves, said corset however was left open at the top to reveal her featureless breasts that were only covered at the edges by black fishnet shoulder clothing, at her neck was a black choker. Her face was covered by a black panther mask with several spots the same color as her skin and was cigarette was seen in the Persona's mouth, she also had long black hair tied in two long tails. The lower part of her body was wearing a mostly red dress that was frilled with black and gold edges at the end of each layer, with a ring of roses at her waist acting like a belt, the Persona also wore a pair of high heeled black boots going to her calves that were decorated with dark red hearts and had pink toe tips with a line of red-orange going up the front of each legs. However under her right foot was a male shaped doll figure in a black suit with it's head locked in a pink heart shaped box with pink eyes and a circular barred opening at the mouth, the figure was on it's hands and knee's as Carmen dug her foot into it's upper back. At the neck of this figure was a long rose vine that was attached to another, identical figure that was being dangled in the air as Carmen held the vine that suspended it in the air.

"Carmen, Maragion!" Panther ordered.

Carmen swung the dangling male figure she held, causing bursts of fire to blast on the remaining Beowolves like fireworks, causing them to disintegrate in an instant.

"Nice, you found their Weakness." Oracle shouted, "Though I did have to guide you through it a bit... Hold on, there's one more, looks like a big one."

From the woods came a larger, more armored version of the Beowolves, this one being an Alpha Beowolf.

Joker grinned as he grabbed his mask, "Arsene!" Joker shouted tearing his mask off.

Arsene appeared to the Alpha, which stepped back in surprise of the Persona appearing and spreading its wings, "Cleave!" Joker commanded.

Arsene obliged and slashed it claws at the Alpha, hitting it with more strength than usual and causing the Grimm to jump from the force of the attack before falling to its side like a wounded wolf.

"It's down! Let 'em have it!" Oracle shouted as Arsene faded.

"All-out attack." Joker ordered as he smirked.

The world turned to a dark red as the seven thieves were left unaffected before leaping into the air. The scene then shifted to the silhouette of the Alpha, which had managed to get back up, and was currently being bombarded by attacks coming from seven unidentifiable black blurs darting in and out to attack the Grimm.

A flash filled the scene before Joker landed with his back turned to the Grimm, tightening one of his gloves before he tightened the second with a confident smirk on his face as a grey star with two bullet holes in it appeared in the background, followed by the Grimm spurting black blood from it's neck as Joker's eyes seemed to glow red in the scene

-The Shows over-

[OST End]

"Show off." Skull joked.

"Like you all don't do similar." Oracle said as Necronomicon lowered her back to the ground before vanishing.

"He rubbed off on us." Panther said hooking her whip to her belt.

"Might I suggest we start moving before we are ambushed again?" Fox pointed out.

"Good idea." Queen said, "Mona, do you think you can still-"

"Of course I can!" Mona shouted, "Watch."

With that Mona jumped remarkably high into the air, before coming back down in the form of a cat themed van.

"Hop in." Mona called out.

"I got the wheel." Queen said opening the driver side door and stepping in, "Don't worry, I'll drive calmly."

"It's not your driving I'm actually worried about at the moment." Skull said.

"Mona I hope you can do heating better than air conditioning." Panther said taking the passenger seat.

"Hey I was doing my best!" Mona shouted.

"We'll be bunched together, we can share body heat." Oracle said stepping in, "Just don't give us any funny looks, Skull."

"Hey!" Skull shouted.

Joker and Noir were the last to step into the van, Joker letting Noir go first, "Thank you." Noir said as she stepped in, Joker following soon after.

"Does anyone know which way to go?" Fox asked.

"I can see a sign over there." Queen said pointing out the window, "Following it should take us to a place called... Atlas."

 **[[]]**

 **Dear lord it's finally over.**

 **I'm sorry if some of these Persona's descriptions are on the nose or missing anything, but holy hell it's a pain to actually describe these things. I was lucky Milady actually had a description on the SMT wiki.**

 **Seriously people, just looking at Goemon too long makes my eyes hurt.**

 **Anyway I hope you all enjoyed this and I'll see you all next time... hopefully when I get around to the ultimate Persona descriptions those will be easier, or others will have posted a description somewhere.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Hello folks, it's time for another episode of Phantom Thieves.**

 **I don't really have much to say so I'll just get into the chapter.**

 **[[]]**

"How far back was the last sign?" Skull muttered as he held his arms close to his chest, his breath slightly visible.

"About twenty minutes back." Queen said, "We shouldn't be too much farther from Atlas."

"Thank goodness." Mona sighed, his voice coming from the dashboard, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"We drove you around a l-lot more than this in Mementos Mona." Panther pointed out.

"Yeah, but never all in one sitting." Mona shouted, "We took breaks at rest stops we found every so often!"

"He's got a point." Oracle said.

"How are you doing Joker?" Noir asked.

"My legs are getting stiff." Joker said flatly.

"Dude that's what you're complaining about?" Skull asked, "I think I'm starting to lose feeling in my toes."

"I'm surprised of the lack of unique scenery." Fox muttered looking out the window, "All I've seen for miles is snow and ice, with the occasional tree."

"There's been nothing but snow for miles now, you'd think we've have seen some form of civilization by now." Noir mused.

"Well considering the threat the Grimm pose I don't think it would be a good idea to build a village with so little surrounding it." Queen said, "With no natural defenses the Grimm can come from every angle."

"Queen! Brakes!" Mona shouted suddenly.

Queen's head shot to the center of the window and slammed both her feet on the brakes, pulling Mona to a halt, stopping just a few centimeters from a woman.

"Lavenza?" Joker asked in confusion the moment he saw the familiar blue clad girl.

"Is she trying to get run over or something!?" Skull shouted as Lavenza walked to the driver's seat and opened the door.

"Excuse me, I'd like to drive." Lavenza said.

"Uh... sure." Queen said as she unbuckled herself and climbed into the back seats, while Lavenza sat in the driver's seat.

"So... what are you doing here?" Panther asked as Lavenza started driving them along.

"I've found suitable entry into Atlas for you, one where you won't have to slip past guards to enter." Lavenza said as she drove through the snowfield surprisingly smoothly, "I've also managed to get you all a two month lease in a rented house, after that you'll have to start paying for yourself."

"I don't think we're planning to stay any longer than that anyway." Joker said, "Some of us can't stand the cold."

"Not to mention the cold weather isn't good for plants." Noir added.

"I suspected as much." Lavenza said, "I've also come to tell you that your false documents are in place, as far as Atlas and all of Remnant are concerned, you and your friends moved to Atlas from a nomadic tribe a little under half a year ago."

"That's good." Queen said, "That way if we have to pull a heist within the month it won't seem like we came here just to steal something... Even if it only is someone's Treasure."

"I had thought the same." Lavenza said, "Finally, I've managed to procure you all Scrolls, this world equivalent of cell phones, and have finished exchanging your funds for that which is accepted in Remnant."

"How much do we have in comparison to Yen?" Oracle asked, "It's good to know what counts as a lot of money and a little so we don't get scammed."

"Just one of Remnant's Lien is equivalent to ten of Japan's Yen." Lavenza said as she opened 'Le Grimoire', which she had sat in between her and Panther, with one hand, revealing eight wallets, "I've also taken the moment to give Morgana funding equivalent to Ann's."

The seven Phantom Thieves took the wallets from the book, which held their scrolls and banking cards, as well as their I.D.'s and passed them around a bit so that everyone had their own, while Joker held his and Morgana's.

"Thanks." Joker said with a smile.

"I'd also like for you to know this, but your banking accounts are all connected to the Velvet Room." Lavenza said, "That way you will not draw any suspicion in the event any of you accidentally deposit an excessive amount of Lien into your Bank account."

"Yeah, that would be a shitty way of getting caught." Skull nodded in agreement, "I'm surprised Akira never got caught actually, considering the sheer amount of cash we got from the Palaces and Mementos."

"I only deposited fragments at a time." Joker said, before explaining further. "Made it look like I was simply getting paid from a part time job."

"Speaking of Part-time jobs, you really worked yourself to the bone back in your second year." Mona said from the dashboard, "I'm amazed you managed to do so well with them all."

"I've also been sent to tell you that Igor's master has re-created access to the Metaverse for your own personal use," Lavenza said, "As of this moment you eight are the only ones capable of entering the Metaverse."

"That's good." Panther said, "At least we won't have to worry about someone like Akechi running in and killing people's Shadow's without us knowing," she said...before a thought crossed their minds.

"Wait...did you say 're-created access'?" Futaba asked.

"That is correct," Lavenza nodded. "Remnant already has a Metaverse, and while we are unsure if its circumstances are the same as the one you encountered before, it has nevertheless been closed off from the 'real world' until we created an access way," she explained.

"Interesting…" Mona mused from the dashboard. "But how do we know that it wasn't created by something like Yaldabaoth?"

"That, we have not been able to determine. However, we are aware that there are a few fundamental differences between this world's Metaverse and that of Earth. All of which you will find soon enough, especially when you enter Mementos. But for now, we are here." Lavenza said slowing the van to a stop, followed by everyone hopping out and Mona turning back into a Faunus, having decided not to pursue this line of questioning any further for now.

The group had stopped in front of a tall, white, metal wall that sectioned off Atlas from the wilds.

"Are you expecting us to climb this?" Fox asked in surprise.

"Not at all." Lavenza said stepping up to a panel in the wall and pulling it aside surprisingly easily, "I expect you to walk through."

"That makes much more sense." Joker said as his clothes and weapons vanished in blue flames, returning him to his casual winter wear, with the addition of a large, black wool coat.

The others made similar changes, all of them also having on wool coats in the same color of their normal shirts.

As Mona looked as though he were about to change form Lavenza held up her hand to the faunus, "Morgana, I would recommend you take the from of a cat while you are in Atlas." Lavenza said, "Atlas is the... least friendly kingdom toward the Faunus at the current time."

Mona nodded before in a flash of blue flames he was back in his cat form, and as quickly picked up by Akira and put in his bag (Which was actually rather warm.)

"Thanks for the help Lavenza." Akira said.

"You're welcome." Lavenza said with a smile.

[Salem's Fortress]

[OST- Persona 5: Desire]

Within a fortress that stood unharmed in a dark wasteland filled with Grimm and lacking any form of plant life, stood a woman that was looking at a rather unusual type of Grimm.

The woman had deathly white skin, covered in purple veins on her face and arms, The sclerae of her eyes were jet black and her irises glowed red, she had a black diamond-shaped marking in the center of her forehead. She was wearing a very long black robe with red designs resembling eyes on her back, she also wore a ring resembling an insect on her right index finger, her hair was white and was formed into a bun with six offshoots from which ornaments were suspended.

This was a woman known only as Salem, often thought to be the queen of the Grimm.

The Grimm she was looking at was an orb like creature with several dozen tendrils hanging below it, this was a Grimm known as a Seer.

"Interesting." Salem mused as she looked into the Seer, which was showing her the scene of Joker summoning Arsene, "A power such as that would prove just as, if not possibly more useful as that of the Maiden's Power."

Waving the Seer away Salem turned and began to walk to her bedroom, determined to find a way to convince, or if need be, manipulate the Phantom Thieves into joining her side.

Too bad for her she would find the task utterly daunting, as little did she know it would be impossible for her to get them on her side.

[OST End]

[Atlas]

"Finally, warmth." Ryuji said as the group of seven walked into a small building, which fortunately had seven beds.

"I'll start looking up the basics of this world." Futaba said as she went over the bed she decided would be hers and opened up her Scroll to the size of a tablet.

"I wonder what's on T.V." Ann said picking up a remote, then looked around the room, "...where is the T.V.?"

"Why don't you just point at a wall until something comes on?" Haru said, "I mean if the technology here has Scrolls that are holographic, wouldn't the same be for the T.V.'s?"

"She has a point." Yusuke said, "The technology of this world is much further ahead than ours."

With that in mind Ann began to point at walls randomly until finally a holographic television came on, "There we go." Ann said proudly.

"In other news." A woman on the T.V. said as the channel it was on was a news channel, "Another Faunus riot took place in front of the Schnee Dust Company main headquarters. According to local witnesses the Faunus were rioting about inferior payment for their hard work. The CEO of the SDC, Jacques Schnee denies that he pays Faunus unfairly, claiming that all SDC Faunus SDC workers are paid the same amount as the human workers."

"You can easily make an assumption just based on that." Makoto muttered, "He might not even be telling the truth."

"Oh he's telling the truth." Futaba said suddenly, "Just not the whole truth."

"Whaddya mean?" Ryuji asked.

"Well, instead of doing a quick search on Remnant's history, I hacked into the SDC records." Futaba said smirking, "Turns out Atlas barely has any firewalls up to prevent this kind of thing from happening."

"It's kinda scary how fast you did that." Morgana said as he hopped onto the bed next to Futaba.

"I've pulled up the payroll for Faunus and they're all getting paid the exact same thing." Futaba said, "And looking up the Atlas minimum wage policy... looks like all Faunus are getting paid minimum wage, even the ones that have been working at the place for ten years or more."

"What about the wages for human workers?" Akira asked.

"Fairly normal." Futaba said, "Rookies are paid minimum wage and the longer workers get paid more."

"So basically the guys a racist bastard." Ryuji said in an almost deadpan tone.

"More than that." Futaba said pulling up another screen and after a few minutes continued speaking, "I just looked into his family records, turns out the guy wasn't even born a Schnee, he married into that name."

"Was it an arranged marriage?" Haru asked.

"Not sure." Futaba said, "What I do know is that Jacques has three kids, two daughters named Winter and Weiss, and a son named Whitely."

"Who is the current heir to the SDC then?" Makoto asked.

"As of this moment that would be... Weiss Schnee." Futaba said, "Huh... Even though Winter is older Weiss is the heir... wonder why?"

"Maybe she had a bit of a falling out with her old man?" Ryuji suggested.

"We don't know the relationship between him and his family though." Yusuke said, "It could be a number of reasons."

"Nope, Ryuji's right." Futaba said, "Apparently Winter Schnee joined the Atlesian military without her Father's consent, supposedly Jacques was outraged the moment he heard about it but soon accepted it."

"He just accepted it?" Ann asked, "Just like that?"

"It's almost as if he doesn't mind the position his daughter took after he thought it out..." Yusuke mused, "What's her current position in the military?"

"Lets see..." Futaba said quietly as her fingers flew across her holographic screen, "She's currently a Specialist in the Military, which is apparently the position of a Huntsman or Huntress."

"The hells a Huntsman and Huntress exactly?" Ryuji asked.

"Let me check..." Futaba muttered switching screens, "Okay so a Huntsman is a person who has gone through several years of training to combat the Grimm, armed with a weapon that is usually combined with a gun, Aura, and Semblance they are difficult to take down in a fight."

"Back to Schnee, we can look up the rest of these terms later." Akira said.

"Right, so Jacques decided to shift the title of Heiress to Weiss after Winter joined the military." Futaba said, "She received several tutors in how to run the company, as well as a few tutors to learn how to fight as a Huntress to defend herself... It seems Whitely is receiving identical lessons at the moment, minus Huntsman training."

"It's like he's raising his son to take over the SDC in case Weiss steps out of her boundaries." Makoto said.

Akira pulled out his Scroll and quickly noticed the red and black eye app sitting in the middle of the screen, taping his thumb to it he opened the app and spoke into the Scroll, "Jacques Schnee." Akira said.

 _"Candidate Found."_ The app replied, before the screen shifted to another, which had three blanks spaces, one of which soon added the name Jacques Schnee, all while a dark purple distortion rippled around them.

"He's got one." Akira said, looking up from his scroll.

"Wow, we've not even been here a full day and we're already targeting someone's Palace." Ann said, before looking around at the rest of the group. "Are there any objections?"

"None here." Ryuji said.

"I have no objections myself." Yusuke said.

"With the way he's treating the Faunus I'm willing to bet he's one of the main reasons Atlas has such a negative opinion of the Faunus at the moment." Makoto said.

"Alright then." Futaba said closing her scroll, "Let's see if we can figure out the other two keywords."

"A location and a distortion right?" Ryuji mused, "Been a while since we did this, we usually start with the location right?"

"It is the easier of the two to figure out." Yusuke said with a nod, "Let's see... we'll start with the most obvious option. Schnee Dust Company headquarters."

 _"No candidates found."_ The app responded.

"So... where does he live then?" Makoto said, "If it's not his workplace the next likely place is his home."

"- Due to the recent severity of the White Fang attempt to attack the SDC." The news reported continued as the T.V. had not be turned off, "Jacques Schnee has increased security at the Schnee Family Mansion."

"Well... how about the Schnee Family Mansion then?" Ann asked.

 _"Candidate Found."_ The app announced, causing another ripple.

"Well that was convenient." Haru said, "Now the hard part, the distortion."

"It could be anything." Akira said, "Without knowing how his mind works we're just grasping at straws."

"Let's just try anyway." Ryuji said, "But let's find out where he lives first, that way we can get into his Palace quickly... and so we can find it in the first place."

"Already on it." Futaba said, before bringing up a map of the city, and a path to their next destination.

[Schnee Family Mansion, Front Gates]

The group of seven stood a fair distance outside the family mansion, far enough away that they wouldn't arouse suspicion. Even at this distance they could see how big it was. Clearly the Schnee family had profited greatly from their trade.

"Right distortions..." Ryuji said once they were done staring at the mansion which was honestly bigger than even Haru's mansion. "Maybe a slave camp?"

 _"Conditions have not been met."_ The app announced.

"Why would he think of his own house as a slave camp?" Futaba asked.

"Hey Madarame thought of his shack as a museum." Ryuji defended, "There really aren't any rules to these Palaces after all."

"True." Ann admitted, "Maybe a factory?"

"Nope." Akira said looking at his Scroll.

"With how much he seems to sway to controlling others... perhaps a Theater of some kind?" Yusuke asked.

 _"Conditions have not been met."_ The app announced.

"A good guess, but no." Akira said before going silent again... The situation with Jacques reminded him of something, though slightly differently.

"What's on your mind Akira?" Morgana asked popping his head out the bag.

"Yeah..." Akira said, "Where have we seen just a single group of people treated like slaves out of an entire buildings worth?" It wasn't asked like a question he didn't know the answer to, but a question that Ryuji and Ann could answer.

"Yeah, Kamoshida's Palace, the boys in the Volleyball team were nothing more than Slaves in his eyes." Ryuji said.

"It was a place of control," Akira said, "And held slaves just out of sight."

"A castle." Morgana said aloud.

 _"Conditions have been met."_ Announced the App as another ripple shifted through the world, only this one was far more prolonged.

 **[[]]**

 **Okay to be honest, I wanted to continue this chapter a little longer, however I've been trying to write this chapter for 3 days now with all the interruptions and it's kinda getting on my nerves.**

 **Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this because next chapter we're gonna be going through Jacques's Palace... I also need to hurry up and decided what Shadow's the group will encounter in there.**


	5. Chapter 4

**Okay folks time for more Phantom Thieves, hopefully this doesn't take three days to write like last time.**

 **Anyway I have a couple things I want to say before this chapter begins.**

 **1: Yes, I know, last chapter moved too fast in pace, I admit it, not one of my best moments in writing- Let's move on.**

 **2: To those of you who are going to worry that the Phantom Thieves will be completing Jacques Palace in one go, don't worry, they won't- They'll go through all Palaces like they did in the game: Secure entry, leave, secure infiltration route up until they reach a cognition based blockade, leave to clear that up, return to finish infiltration route, send calling card, steal treasure- Or course once they actually start to secure their infiltration route they won't stop (Because let's be honest P5 Players, aside from Kamoshida's Palace how often did you actually leave a Palace when you weren't forced to because of cognition?)**

 **3: Don't worry folks, I do plan to have plenty of interaction between the RWBY cast and the Phantom Thieves.**

 **4: For everyone ho's asking for a relative time in which the story is currently taking place, don't worry I'll start dropping hints in this chapter... maybe actually answer it, I don't know yet.**

 **5: I do have someone running these chapters by before I post them... unless Swift can't actually check them before the damn thing called a pillow steals my consciousness.**

 **6: For all of you Guest Reviewers who have questions- It would be a lot easier for me to answer them if you got an account, it doesn't cost anything, you don't have to write something if you don't want to, but at least its easier for us writers to answer your questions if we can actually message you.**

 **I think that's everything so here's the story.**

 **[[]]**

When the ripples of distortion faded the group had been changed into their Phantom Thieves attire, with Mona taking his Faunus form yet again.

"Man... I can't believe it's been so long since we last entered a Palace." Skull said looking at the other Thieves. "So, let's see what we're dealing with here."

Using that as a cue the Phantom Thieves all turned to where the Schnee Mansion once stood, however the Schnee Mansion wasn't there.

Instead there was a massive marble white castle with a single spire in the middle of it, however there were massive crystals of varying colors growing across the castle, and in between the Phantom Thieves and the castle was a large garden filled with tall hedges and white flowers.

"I'm getting Kamoshida vibes already." Panther said.

"Please don't let it be filled with lust related shit." Skull begged into the heavens.

"Considering what we know about Jacques I doubt his Palace would involve anything related to lust." Fox said.

"Fox, we hardly know anything about Jacques." Oracle said, "We're lucky we managed to figure out the keywords to his Palace."

"Speaking of his Palace, we should probably see if we can find a way in." Queen said gesturing to the large metal fence in front of them, with the gate marked by the Schnee symbol.

"Joker, you see a way past this?" Mona asked as he pulled his sword out of seemingly nowhere.

That was one of the more useful things about the outfits, once they have their weapons the outfits can store them away so they don't have to keep carrying them. In truth they actually forgot the suits could do thanks to the fact they haven't actually used them in so long.

Of course Joker's outfit seemed to have bottomless pockets considering the masses of treasure and items he always seemed to carry with him when they went into a Palace or Mementos.

Looking around Joker noticed a statue of Jacques a fair distance from the fence.

Joker took a close look at the statue, though it was colorless Joker would now at least be able to identify the man. He had mid length hair that was combed back, along with moderately thick eyebrows, and a large mustache, and was wearing a business suit.

"Wow, I can tell he's an ass just by looking at this thing." Skull snorted.

"He must think very highly of himself in his cognition has created a statue of him this far from the Palace itself." Noir said with a small frown.

Joker however was looking at the base of the statue, noticing it was on uneven ground.

"What are you thinking about Joker?" Mona asked.

Instead of answering Joker smirked and walked over to the side of the statue, the part on the higher ground.

"Uh... what are you doing?" Skull asked.

Joker's answer came from him suddenly and sharply kicking the statue, right in the part that was Jacques's shin. This caused the statue to tip from the strength of the hit while it was already leaning and soon crashed into the fence, tearing down a part of it.

"That's one way to do it." Panther said surprised.

"I'm pretty sure that's not what the statue was meant for." Fox sighed slightly, not one to condone damage to artwork, even if it WAS a cognition, "Still, it gives us a way in I suppose."

"Let's go." Joker said jumping onto the statue, then into the garden itself.

[Persona 5 OST: King, Queen, and Slave.]

Once the Phantom Thieves were in the garden the quickly ducked behind one of the tall hedges and Joker peeked around the corner.

He saw nothing but a fountain tipped by a snowflake, though the water seemed to be frozen. It was actually only a shell of ice allowing water inside to flow freely.

Joker rolled out of the shadows, followed by his comrades, and made his way to the other side of the fountain and to the hedge wall on that side of the fountain and peeked around a gap in the fence.

What they saw was a Shadow standing in front of the gate to another fence around the mansion, this one having a large lock on it.

The Shadow was almost twice as tall as the average human, this one was wearing white armor on it's chest as well as armor on its arms and shoulders, it's gut was covered in black fabric and had pants of the same color, divided by a belt, it's boots were armored as well, on its head was a helmet that covered the upper part of its face and it's chin, leaving it's featureless black mouth in view, in it's right hand it was holding a collapsible police baton. Said chest armor was marked by a white snowflake outlined in black.

As soon as the group saw it the Shadow walked off, followed by them running up to the fence.

Joker lifted the lock to look at it, his lockpicks would be useless in opening it due to the fact that there was a snowflake shaped indentation on the lock instead of a keyhole, "We're going to need to find the key if we're getting inside." Joker said.

"That's a pain." Skull sighed, but shrugged. Nothing new there.

"I suggest we follow the Shadow we saw earlier." Fox said, "Considering he was by the gate when we saw him it is likely he has the key, if not it will lead us closer to someone with the key."

"Let's go everyone." Joker said running in the direction the Shadow went.

Running along the hedge wall Joker paused in front of a large vase filled with white roses.

A normal thief would think of it as valuable, but for the Phantom Thieves, things like this were like mini-treasure chests.

Activating his Third Eye ability, Joker's vision turned the world into a dark shade of blue, but the vase was glowing golden.

Smirking Joker swung his hand, partially open, into the vase and shattered it, sending rose petals flying.

Once he was done, he looked at his hand. In Jokers grip was a red crystal, normally that would be it, however…

"Whoa." Oracle said looking at the crystal through her mask, "Joker, that crystal is full of fire energy."

"Wait, what?" Panther asked in surprise.

"So... it's like an Agi spell in a crystal?" Haru asked.

"Yep." Oracle said, "However it seems too stable to just throw it to cause the blast... I wonder if it needs a catalyst."

"Uh, we're losing the Shadow!" Mona called out, reminding them of the target.

"Mona's right, we'll figure it out later." Joker said putting the crystal in his pocket.

Just a bit further ahead they found the Shadow, which was walking into what appeared to be a garden shed.

"We got 'em cornered." Skull said with a grin.

"Is everyone ready?" Queen asked pulling out her tekko.

The group nodded, more than enough of a signal for Joker to kick open the door.

"Is... that a mining lift?" Panther asked looking inside the shed.

Apparently instead of gardening tools the shed was filled by only a wooden lift that went downward.

"Not really much choice of direction is there?" Oracle said, "Well, time to head on down below."

With that everyone stepped onto the lift as Joker pulled the wooden lever next to the entrance, causing the lift to shudder and lower.

[]

After a couple of minutes the lift stopped, leaving the group in a small cavern lit by old lanterns and having a metal grate over a large hole in the wall.

"Where did the Shadow go?" Fox asked as Queen took a look through the grate.

This was followed by Queen gasping and taking a step back, "You...might want to check this out." Queen said.

Taking Queen's advice the Phantom Thieves walked to the grates and looked through, and slightly downward. This caused Oracle and Panther to gasp, Skull to growl in anger, and for Fox's, Mona's, and Jokers faces to twist into a scowl.

Down below there were dozens of figures walking around and working, all of them had animal traits on their bodies, which were dangerously thin, some held hammers, others shovels, others pickaxes, but all of them were chained around the ankle to one another.

"Those Cognition's... They're all faunus." Mona said in alarm.

"And they're being treated like a bunch of damned slaves." Skull growled, memories of the last Castle-like Palace they'd been to about 3 years ago coming to the forefront of his mind.

Before anyone else could speak up another door opened on the same level as the slaves.

Two Shadows identical to the one they saw earlier walked out, followed by a third figure.

This figure was wearing a white robes fitting that of a king, as well as a golden crown with a single white crystal embedded in the center, in its hand was a white scepter tipped by a white orb with a snowflake imprinted on it, under the robe a suit of chainmail glinted.

The figure that wore this attire was Jacques Schnee, or rather due to it's golden irises, Jacques's Shadow.

"How goes the mining operation?" Shadow Jacques demanded to the nearest faunus, his voice echoed and slightly distorted.

"Y-Your highness." The male Faunus said, "W-we're trying our best, but we can only work so hard in these conditions."

Shadow Jacques said nothing as one of the Shadow's brought him a clipboard, "Hmm... this is acceptable, for today at least." Shadow Jacques said, "Tomorrow I expect more than this however."

"S-sir, we can't-" The Faunus started, only to be cut off when Shadow Jacques knocked him aside with his scepter.

"No excuses." Shadow Jacques said flatly before he turned around and left the mines.

"That man is despicable." Oracle finally said.

"He really is treating them as nothing more than slaves." Queen said.

"Geez, this is just like it was with Kamoshida." Skull said, "Though with ruthless workouts over this."

"Hey, who are you?" A distorted voice shouted, causing the group to turn around and see the Shadow they were following was standing behind them.

"Where'd that Shadow go?" Skull asked, "And how did he sneak up on us like that?"

"Does it really matter?" Oracle said, "Just take it down and get the key."

Joker smirked at this and quickly leapt into the air, higher than most people were capable of, and landed on the Shadow's shoulder, his off hand grabbing the edge of the Shadow's faceplate.

"What the-!?" The Shadow cried out, that's all it could get out before Joker tore it's helmet off, revealing that it had two glowing yellow eyes.

Joker jumped off the Shadow to rejoin his allies as the Shadow began to bend over backwards unnaturally before it burst into a pile of red and black goop.

Said goop then burst into a new figure.

First off, it was large, it had a white rounded head with black eyes and a wide smiling black mouth, it wore a tall, thin crown in it's head with white hair coming down it's head with three curls on each side, it wore a massive gold plate on it's chest with a lock in the middle of it, and several bolted latches on the lines where the plate connected to other plates, two pure white arms stood poked through the armor, one of them was holding a large scepter.

"It's a King Frost." Queen said, "Ice and Bless attacks are useless against it."

"Carmen!" Panther shouted tearing off her mask, "Agilao!"

Panther's Persona appeared, and quickly let out the bursts of flames on the Shadow, hurting it, but not hitting a weakness as King Frost did not have a weakness to fire like it's weaker counterpart, Jack Frost, did.

King Frost lifted its scepter and swung it, forming a crystal of ice around Skull, which shattered soon after, leaving Skull slightly injured.

"Ow!" Skull cried out, "Man I'm outta it."

Skull quickly reached for his mask, "Let's go Captain, Zionga!" Skull shouted tearing his mask off.

The pirate Persona appeared and aimed it's cannon at the King, firing off a bolt of lightning at the Shadow, electrocuting it harshly.

"Come Milady!" Noir announced tearing her mask of, "Psio!"

Noir's Persona appeared, swinging her fan out, creating orbs of brightly colored energy that converged on the King, injuring it with a psychokinetic strike.

"Arsene!" Joker shouted tearing his mask off, "Eiga!"

The First Persona of Joker appeared with a chuckle, conjuring a burst of black and red energy as he did, knocking the Shadow back.

"Let me handle this." Panther said running up to Joker.

Joker nodded and stepped aside, allowing Panther to walk past him.

Panther put a hand to her mouth and chuckled, "On you knees!" Panther demanded putting her foot forward and slamming it on a raised rock, she then proceeded to swing her whip several times at King Frost, eliminating the Shadow.

"Nice going Panther." Oracle said.

As the Shadow dissolved Joker noticed a metal object shaped like a snowflake. "That must be the key." Joker said picking up the object.

"Man, I forgot how scary Panther can be when she's got that whip." Skull said.

"I don't think you should say that when you're in range of said whip, Skull." Mona said as he noticed Panther's glare.

"Let's head back to the gate." Queen said redirecting the attention of the team to Joker.

"Right, let's go." Joker said walking to the lift.

[]

The group had returned to the gate without incident and Joker calmly set the key into the slot, which flashed white, followed by the metal gate swinging open.

"Alright!" Skull cheered.

"Now we need a way into the castle itself." Queen said.

"How about that open window?" Oracle asked pointing through the bars at an open window just to the side of the castle doors.

"I'm really getting Deja vu now." Panther said looking at the window.

Joker was the first to climb into the window, already ahead of the others.

"Hey! Wait for us!" Mona called out running toward Joker.

Inside they found themselves in a storage room, which really only had a few crates marked by a white snowflake symbol.

"Geez that mark is everywhere here." Skull said looking at a crate.

"Perhaps it's Jacques's logo." Fox said.

"We'll find out when we get to the real world." Oracle said, "I can sense a Safe Room just a bit further ahead though."

"Let's mark down the location of that Safe Room, then we'll leave." Joker said opening the door, peeking around a bit to see if there were any Shadows.

There were none, so he motioned for Oracle to follow him out.

"This room." Oracle said opening the door on the other side of the thin hall, which had a white carpet on the floor and a few tables every so often.

Opening the door to the safe room, the Phantom Thieves looked around the room.

At first it appeared to be a guest room, occupied by a large white table with two white couches in the middle on a shiny floor that had a snowflake printed on it, along with a thin table lined with flower pots on the back wall.

However there was a ripple of distortion that flowed through the room, making the guest room fade for a moment to reveal a much less overly pristine room with a single bed, a wardrobe that was open to reveal a white shirt and black vest like that of a butlers, and a small table at the side of the room.

The distortion faded away soon after again to show the guest room once again.

"Alright, let's take a moment to rest, then we're leaving." Joker said, "We've got our entry route, now let's learn more about our situation on Remnant."

"You got it." Skull said with a firm nod.

[]

[OST- P5: Victory]

[[Infiltration Log]]

-New- [Infiltrated Castle Gardens]

-New- [Obtained Front Gate Key]

-New- [Infiltrated Castle]

-New- [Found a Safe Room]

[OST end]

[]

"Alright so I'm gonna be here for a while looking up information." Futaba said as she sat on her bed with her Scroll in hand, "You guys got any ideas of what to do while you wait?"

"I'm going to see if I can find us the things we need so Akira can start making us some coffee." Haru said.

"I'm heading grocery shopping with Makoto and Ryuji." Ann said.

"Why am I coming?" Ryuji moaned.

"We'll need help carrying the bags." Makoto said simply.

"I'm going to look around Atlas for the time." Yusuke said, "Perhaps I'll feel inspired to paint something new by looking around at a new environment."

"Morgana and I are going to follow Yusuke." Akira said, "See if I can keep him from unsettling the locals."

"Even after all this time Yusuke is still socially awkward." Morgana sighed.

[]

"This is depressing." Yusuke said as he looked around the central of Atlas's shopping centers through his finger's which were positioned so it were as if he were looking through a frame.

The building were tall and mostly colorless, and the snow on top wasn't helping in the least, he noticed several buildings in the area that sold something called Dust.

Akira figured it was not the kind of Dust he found in Leblanc's attic when he first moved in.

On the tallest building Akira noticed there was a holographic T.V. showing an ad for a cereal called, 'Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes'.

The few people that were around the area however irked Akira, and by extension, Yusuke and Morgana. They were all people who acted high and mighty, he even saw some people push down other's who didn't look all the much more than financially average.

"Ugh." Morgana grumbled, "A bunch of stuck up rich folks live in Atlas don't they? Wonder how they'll all react to Jacques getting 'robbed'."

"Yes, the people are a depressing sight." Yusuke said lowering his hands, "However I'd also have to say this place isn't all that inspiring to begin with. All I can see around here is brick and snow, not much of an inspiring scene to paint. Shame really, you would think with the type of people we've seen so far there would be a bit more variety..."

"Your a painter?" A new voice asked, a young woman's voice to be precise.

"Hmm?" Yusuke hummed as he turned to face the newcomer.

The woman who spoke to them was a pale skinned woman with bright blue eyes and snow white hair tied in an off-center ponytail. She was wearing a thigh-length strapless dress with faint color gradation from white to pale blue at the hem, a small piece of black lace sat at the front of her neckline and the hem of the dress is scalloped and stitched to resemble snowflakes, with layers of white tulle under her combat skirt, over the dress was a bell sleeved bolero with the same color gradation as her dress from shoulder to wrist and reached down to just below her ribcage, the inside was lined in red and finished with a ruffled collar.

"He is." Akira said, "Mind telling us who you are though?"

The woman looked at Akira as if he had grown an extra head, "I am Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust company." The woman introduced, "Now I believe I asked a question."

"Man she's as stuck up as- Wait did she say her name was Schnee?" Morgana asked hiding in Akira's bag, barely looking through the closed zipper, "Yusuke, do what she says, we might be able to get something useful out of this."

"Forgive us miss Schnee." Yusuke said, "We've live rather solitary lives with our friends for a while, as for your question, yes, I do paint."

"How good are you?" Weiss asked crossing her arms.

"I... don't really have any of my work with me at the moment." Yusuke admitted, "If I had-"

"Here's a piece of his titled 'Desire and Hope'." Akira said holding out his Scroll, thankful that Lavenza had transferred his pictures to the Scroll from his Phone.

Weiss took the scroll and looked at the painting that it was a picture of, "You painted this?" Weiss asked.

"Indeed." Yusuke said, "An improvement over a previous painting simply entitle 'Desire', and far better than it as well."

Weiss handed the Scroll back to Akira as she put a hand to her chin, "Do you do portraits?" Weiss asked.

Yusuke blinked, "It has been some time since I last attempted a portrait." Yusuke mused, "What do you think Akira?"

Akira looked over to Yusuke and had only one thing to say. "No nudes." Akira said.

"What!?" Weiss shouted.

"I've learned my lesson with Ann," Yusuke said, "I'd only do a nude portrait of her if she wishes."

Weiss simply stammered for a minute before finding her voice, "N-no! No nudes." Weiss said flatly.

"So you simply wish for me to paint you as you are." Yusuke said, then began to look at her from head to toe, "Your palette lacks a large variety of color... Yet that's more than I can say about Atlas. Very well, though I ask that my friend comes with me."

"And why should I?" Weiss asked, "Why would you need-"

"Yusuke grew up isolated from almost everyone." Akira said, "As such he's a little socially awkward, one of us normally sticks by him to clear up any misunderstanding he causes."

Weiss nodded at Akira's reasoning, "Very well, follow me." Weiss said, "And, Yusuke right? You'll only get paid when I see the finished work."

"Fair enough, you need to see that it truly was me that painted 'Desire and Hope'." Yusuke said, "There is no reason to spend money on a false painter."

And with that, the Schnee heiress and three Phantom Thieves made their way to the Schnee mansion.

 **[[]]**

 **Well, its around midnight, but this ended up taking a hell of a long time to write.**

 **Now something you all may have noticed is that Reading Twin Heroes of Remnant has been taken down.**

 **That is because it was removed from the site during an Admin's Sweep, this has resulted in many stories that were targeted by the CU to be taken down.**

 **Now, that's not to say I'm just gonna give up on Reading: THOR, oh no.**

 **You see when I got my story kicked off this site I went over to Ao3 and sent in a request to get an account, I'll be granted it on the 30 and that night I will start posting more Reading THOR, including the next chapter of the story.**

 **I'll also post a link to my Ao3 account in my bio so you guys have quick access to it.**

 **Now people, this is actually a bit of a bonus on my part, because Ao3 doesn't have any rules saying I can't do Reading Stories, that means I'll probably end up posting more on my Ao3 page... with some stories possibly getting lemon scenes (That one's on thin ice actually because I might not do it if I can't write a good scene.)**

 **Anyway, give me a few minutes to iron out some details and I'll be posting a Ruby's Mansion chapter in a few minutes.**


	6. Chapter 5

**Okay folks, welcome to another chapter of Remnant's Phantom Thieves.**

 **Now before I actually go into this chapter I just want to thank everyone who has commented on this story, thank you all for your support in writing this story.**

 **Anyway, here is your chapter.**

 **[[]]**

[Schnee family mansion]

"You can speak now miss Schnee, it shouldn't affect the painting too much now." Yusuke said after a while of painting on his easel.

The room Akira, Yusuke, and Morgana found themselves in was a rather empty, white marble room of the Schnee mansion, one obviously designed for portrait painting to have as little distractions as possible. The only things in the room were the chairs everyone sat on, the easel, and a table with paints on it.

"Should I be worried or impressed you've already reached that point?" Weiss asked.

"Impressed." Akira said, "Yusuke's a good artist."

"He is the one who replicates the Skill Cards for you to use after all, Akira." Morgana said.

Weiss didn't hear Mogana speak, instead all she heard was a cat meowing, making her blink.

"Did a cat sneak in here?" Weiss asked, a slight hint of hope in her voice.

"Do you like cats?" Akira asked as he reached into his bag, past Morgana, and pulled out a book titled 'The Gentleman Thief', a book he found in Shujin Academy's library and decided to buy a copy for himself. It was a book about Arsene Lupin, the literary man to which his Persona was based on.

"I like small pets of many kinds really." Weiss said, "Mostly cats and dogs though."

"Feel free to turn your head now." Yusuke said, "I'm past that point."

Weiss blinked in surprise at how fast Yusuke was painting, and in turn was getting a bit worried about his art skills.

"Don't worry." Akira said, "He's a bit socially awkward, but his painting skills aren't to be denied."

Weiss turned her head slightly to Akira, "I'll take your word for it." Weiss said coldly, then she noticed the title of the book he was reading, "Your reading about a thief?" she asked, a hint of distaste in her voice.

"I've always preferred crime novels." Akira said, "Especially the ones where the protagonist is the thief, helps you understand their plight."

Weiss rolled her eyes, "It doesn't matter what their plight is, criminals should be persecuted nonetheless." Weiss sighed.

Akira and Yusuke whined ever so slightly at Weiss's words, though she didn't notice them as her eyes were closed.

"Still though..." Weiss sighed, "I can't deny that sometimes criminals that target other criminals get things done much more efficiently that the police, military, and most Huntsmen."

"It's because the only things that bind a thief are their own codes." Akira said flipping a page of his novel, "Not to mention that legal officials are regrettably easily bribed to look away."

Weiss seemed to look a bit more frustrated at that, "That's the most infuriating part." Weiss grumbled, "Every time a criminal has avoided being captured by a hair it feels more like they paid for an escape instead of actually escaping."

"And then there are the people with political power giving them even more sway over the police." Morgana grumbled.

This made Akira wonder, just how much power does Jacques Schnee have?

"Done." Yusuke said carefully turning the easel around, "What do you think?"

Weiss's eyes nearly bulged out in shock, with how fast Yusuke seemed to be painting she was expecting nothing much of a painting. Instead she was staring at a painting of herself that she could honestly mistake for the real person if she wasn't actually the real Weiss.

"I..." Weiss said speechless, "I never should have doubted you."

It was then that Morgana poked his head out of Akira's bag, "I wanna see it!" He called out.

Once again Weiss heard a meow, and when she turned her head to the source she gasped and smiled, "Aww... it's such a cutie." Weiss cooed petting the cat, "What's his name?"

"His name's Morgana." Akira said as said cat shook his head around.

Weiss nodded before pulling herself away from the cat, "Well, the painting is beyond suitable, I'd say you've more than earned your payment, and a bonus." Weiss said pulling out her wallet and pulling out a few notes of Lien, then handing the money, as well as a small pass, "Eleven thousand Lien, as well as a pass to any of my next recitals that are open for you to bring as many guest as you wish."

"Thank you." Yusuke said, "I admit I haven't had much interest in the musical arts, but I do suppose it could be enjoyable nonetheless."

It was at that moment the door opened, revealing none other than Jacques Schnee who had decided to check in, with a face just like his Shadow, but wearing a white business suit instead of a king's outfit.

"I thought I heard others talking." Jacques said firmly, "Weiss, who are they?"

"Allow me to introduce myself, mister Schnee." Yusuke said, "My name is Yusuke Kitagawa, I'm an artist, one that your daughter hired to paint a portrait of herself."

"And that man?" Jacques asked.

"Akira Kurusu." Akira said standing up, putting his book away, "I'm Yusuke's friend, and Yusuke is known among our friends for his social awkwardness due to how he was raised a bit on the isolated side. As such, one of us tries to stick with him to defuse situations that could be misinterpreted."

Jacques nodded, "Understandable then." He said, "Now, what of this portrait of my daughter?"

"Right here father." Weiss said holding her hands out to the painting, "I've already paid him for his services."

Jacques walked past Yusuke and Weiss and took a close look at the painting, "If this is the work you are capable of mister Kitagawa I would like to see what else you are capable of painting in the future."

"Thank you sir." Yusuke said a little flatly, but he was careful enough not to let slip his personal feelings for the man. The last thing they needed was for him to get suspicious, however unlikely that would be. "However, I'm afraid I must be going now. Our friend agreed to meet up soon and I'd rather not be late."

"Very well." Jacques said turning to leave to room, "I myself have to prepare for my speech, SDC policies are going to have a change and I'd like to determine the words to use that would cause the least uproar."

Akira pounced on this chance to get information, "When is this speech?"

"On July fifteenth." Jacques said, "Fourteen days from now. The change in policies will affect all the workers in the SDC mines."

"That's can't be good for the Faunus." Morgana said as Jacques left the room.

Akira nodded subtly at Yusuke while Weiss ended up taking a picture of the portrait to send to her sister.

[Hideout (Apartment)]

Once everyone had gathered back Futaba began to go through all the information she had collected about Remnant.

Aura being like a force field to protect their bodies, generated from their souls, Semblances born of Aura granting people a super-power of some kind, the infinitely useful resource known as Dust, capable of being ammo and fuel, Huntsmen and Huntresses that eliminate the Grimm, history of the four kingdoms, and of course as much public information of the SDC as Futaba could find.

"Well we happen to have gained some information of our own today." Yusuke said, "Information pertaining to Jacques Schnee."

"What exactly are we talking about?" Ryuji asked as Morgana walked into the middle of the table they had all gathered around.

"A deadline." Morgana said, "On our walk we encountered Weiss Schnee, who commissioned Yusuke to paint a portrait of her."

"Did you get paid?" Ryuji asked.

"Now is not the time for that." Ann snapped, "What about the deadline?"

"It turns out Jacques plans to announce new SDC policies on the fifteenth." Akira said leaning forward, "He said it would affect the workers of SDC mines."

"With what we saw in Jacques's Palace, I don't want to know what that would mean for the Faunus." Haru said glumly.

"Nothing good that's for sure." Makoto said with a frown.

"Then it's settled." Akira said, "We'll be sending Jacques a Calling card by the Thirteenth... However..."

"What is it?" Ryuji asked.

"What we have is a bit of a similar case to Shido." Akira said, "Jacques Schnee has nearly monopolized the Dust Distribution market, giving him a lot of power, especially here in Atlas."

"No kidding." Futaba said with a sigh, "After all, the Kingdom of Atlas uses more Dust on a yearly rate than any other kingdom, especially in the military."

"Plus... we're kinda unknown around Remnant at the moment." Ryuji said, nodding in understanding, "I mean if I was Jacques and someone delivered a calling card to me and I never heard of them before, I really wouldn't think much of it. Hell I'd probably just consider it a prank if nothing else."

"Which means we've got to make this calling card flashy enough to make us known across Remnant." Akira said, "And then when Jacques confesses on the day of his speech we'll be known enough that we can shake any other high standard political figures if we need to target them."

"You mean if we encounter another persona like Shido." Ann said.

Akira nodded, "That's correct. But for now, I think we can call this meeting adjourned. There's still a lot we need to prepare first."

"Great, I'm starving." Ryuji said standing up and heading over to the food, along with the other Phantom Thieves, save for Akira and Futaba.

"Futaba, think you could help me with something?" Akira asked.

"Sure, what do you need?" Futaba asked with a nod.

"Think you can find a site that sells books on weapon construction?" Akira asked, "We're gonna need some new weapons. If we have to fight a Huntsman or Huntress we'll need to get on even ground with them before we start to use our Personas."

"Good idea." Futaba said in agreement, remembering some of the information she'd pulled up on the weapons of Remnant, specifically the 'mechashift' system that was very widely used. "If we have to keep switching weapons that'd buy some time for our opponent's to get some unwanted damage on us. I'll see what I can find."

"Good." Akira said, "Now all I'll need are some parts to build them and some other items as well, we're going to need some infiltration tools after all."

 **[[]]**

 **Well it's a bit on the short side, but I didn't have too much planned for this chapter in the first place.**

 **Anyway I'd like to announce that Reading THOR is now officially on my Ao3 account, with a Link on my Profile that will lead to a Link to my Ao3 account (Putting a link directly to Ao3 didn't seem to work.)**

 **Anyway, I'm going to get some sleep now, my sleep cycle is still a little skewed.**


	7. Chapter 6

**Okay guys, time for another chapter of Phantom Thieves... I gotta admit it took some time to figure out what was going to happen in this chapter.**

 **And apologies in advance if the chapter is another short one, we aren't going back into Jacques's Palace just yet.**

 **And further apologies for this taking so long, I really didn't know what to do with this chapter.**

 **[[]]**

[July 2nd- 13 days before Speech]

Akira had stayed up late into the night studying the information on Mecha-Shift weaponry Futaba had pulled up for him, as well as doing his best to sketch out the designs of the Phantom Thieves' new weaponry.

Akira couldn't help but think of his old Confidant, Iwai, while he was doing this. Akira had put together several model guns while working for the Ex-Yakuza back when the Phantom Thieves were mostly still in high-school.

Most of his friends still couldn't believe he held so many part-time jobs, from working at a beef bowl shop, to a flower shop, to a convenience store, to a bar, to Iwai's Airsoft shop, to even helping out around Leblanc's. And yet he held them all without issue, and got paid pretty well for it all too.

Ryuji was still actually having a hard time wrapping his head around all the part-time jobs he had taken.

In the morning Akira had decided to go over his current plan for the day with the rest of the Phantom Thieves.

"Ryuji I'm going to need your help today." Akira said.

"Huh?" Ryuji asked before he could take a bite of his breakfast, "How come?"

"Today I'm going to be picking up several dozen parts for our new weapons." Akira said, "I'm going to need some help carrying them."

"What about everyone else though?" Morgana asked, "We've only got 13 days before Jacques's speech."

"Haru and I are going to go out and find someplace where we can pick up some medicines." Ann said, "We don't have Takemi-san to supply us with her special medicines anymore, so we'll need to find some ourselves, hopefully without them asking too many questions."

"I'm going to see if I can pick up a drivers license." Makoto said, "I'd like for at least one of us to be able to drive legally."

"I'll stay here with Futaba then, as well as attempt to paint a portrait." Yusuke said, "Err... What are you planning to do today Futaba?"

"Hacking." Futaba said simply, "General Ironwood, current headmaster of Atlas Academy and General of the Atlesian army, has firewalls that are so weak it's a joke, it's like they've never dealt with hackers before. Well, easier time for me then, I wonder what the good general has on his personal systems."

"Try not to get caught, we wouldn't want to blow our chance to send Jacques the Calling Card before we can." Morgana said, "Remember it's gotta be really big for someone with a position like Jacques has."

"No kidding." Ann said, "Well, we better get started with the day."

[]

"Jeez this stuff is heavy." Ryuji groaned as he carried two cardboard boxes filled with parts across the thankfully snow-cleared sidewalk.

"It's not just heavy for you Ryuji." Morgana said from the bag on Akira's shoulder, "Akira's carrying two boxes as well."

"Jeez, were the model weapons you bought at Iwai's this heavy?" Ryuji groaned.

"No." Akira said, "Those were made of lightweight materials that were better for display. This stuff is all real."

"I should have figured." Ryuji grunted before he was stopped by his boxes and arms hitting someone in front of him.

"Watch where you're going!" A female voice rather familiar to Akira called out.

"Weiss?" Akira asked looking past his boxes, which he could barely see over.

Of course Weiss wasn't the only one standing there, next to her was another woman taller than her.

This woman had white hair that was tied up in an off center bun, and she was uniformed in a white coat with a red brooch covering her neck, her coat left part of her upper arms exposed and she had black gloves covering her hands, garter belts being incorporated into her pants.

"Wait, Akira?" Weiss asked noticing the man who was with the artist the previous day, "What's with those boxes, and who is the dolt who bumped into my sister?"

"Who are you calling a dolt?" Ryuji snapped.

"That's my friend Ryuji Sakamoto." Akira said, "We've been good friends since high school. As for the boxes, they're Yusuke's supplies."

Weiss nodded at this logic, even though it was a white lie from Akira, one masterful enough that he gave no tells of said lie.

"Weiss, it's not mister Sakamoto's fault he bumped into me." The older looking woman, Weiss's sister according to her, said, "If you would look at him for a moment you'd notice he's having a hard time seeing over those boxes."

Weiss glared a Ryuji for a moment before noticing that issue, "Still, he should be more careful." Weiss scoffed.

"You try holding these boxes and looking over them!" Ryuji snapped, "Damn you're stuck up."

"What was that!?" Weiss snapped.

Akira and Weiss's sister quickly tuned out the brewing argument, "Sorry about Ryuji, our old home had quite a few people who abused their status and he, as well as I, aren't particularly fond of those that look down on others." Akira said.

Weiss's sister nodded, "Yes, unfortunately Weiss is a bit... self centered. I blame our father for that." She said, "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Atlesian Specialist Winter Schnee."

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance." Akira said, "I would shake your hand, but mine are full at the moment."

"I can see." Winter said looking at her sister and Ryuji, who have begun to fully shout at each other, "Perhaps we can have a more civil chat at a later time, without our companions entering a shouting match."

"I'd like that." Akira said as Morgana poked his head out of Akira's bag.

"If we play our cards right we could definitely get some information about Jacques or even Atlas itself." Morgana said, then turned his head to Ryuji and Weiss, "But we'd better break those two up before a crowd starts to form."

Akira looked over at the two bickering people and chose then to step in, "Ryuji, quit arguing with Weiss and let's get going, Yusuke wants these back while it's still daylight out."

Ryuji sighed, "Right, let's go." Ryuji admitted.

"We'll see each other later." Winter said, slipping a card into the top box Akira had, "Call me when you're ready to talk."

[]

"You sure you can build us these?" Haru asked as she and the rest of the Phantom Thieves, minus Akira, were studying the copies of the blueprint's Akira gave them, Morgana in his Faunus form studying the blueprint for his new weapon. He had yet to go get clothes for when he's disguised as a civilian so for the moment he was in his Phantom Thief attire.

"I picked up manuals for building these while I was at the weapons shop." Akira said, "It'll take a while, but I can make them."

"Just make absolutely sure you all go over these every so often." Morgana said, "We can't afford for them to break so maintenance is important."

"I got it..." Ryuji groaned, "Still, I gotta admit these look pretty tough."

With that Akira took the last of the boxes to his room, where he had a worktable set up, to begin creating their weapons, and taking most of the thieves' previous weapons with him for extra parts if necessary.

"So Ann, did you ever find someplace for medicine?" Futaba asked.

Ann smiled, "Yep, they didn't even ask any questions, they just figured I was picking some up for a Huntsman." She said.

"Speaking of Huntsmen." Yusuke said, "We really should find a way to unlock our Aura, as our armor and healing can only keep us alive for so long, even if our Persona's naturally give us a much higher level of durability and pain tolerance."

"Well, I was looking that up actually." Futaba said, "The easiest way is for someone who already has an Aura unlocked to speak a chant and have them unlock it for us... But how are we going to convince someone to unlock our Aura."

Makoto hummed in thought before she blinked, "What if our Aura's already unlocked?" Makoto asked.

"Come again?" Ryuji asked.

"Well, when we were fighting we never got hit once remember?" Makoto said, "Our Aura might already be unlocked and we just don't know it yet."

"Is there anyway to check?" Ann asked.

"Hang on." Futaba said pulling out her Scroll, "Aha! There's an app you can download that measures someone's Aura levels, how much they have left before it shatters and leaves us vulnerable."

"Well what are you waiting for, download it." Ryuji said pulling out his Scroll, "Wait... if we do have Aura, would that mean our Persona's Physical attacks skip past our Aura to drain the stamina needed for the attack?"

"Possibly." Morgana said, "Remember, Physical attacks draw from our bodies themselves while magical ones draw from our spirit instead of our soul."

"This is going to get confusing if we try to figure this out." Haru said with a sigh, before another thought crossed her mind. "Who's hungry?"

The sound of several stomachs growling at that was her answer.

 **[[]]**

 **Short and way overdue, I hope you all are okay with this chapter and hopefully the next will come sooner.**


	8. Chapter 7

**Okay I'm so sorry this is late everyone, but I, for the love of Satanael, just could NOT find a way to make this chapter another casual day that would roll into more set up.**

 **So with that being said I'm pretty sure you all know what we're about to do.**

 **Let's go.**

 **[[]]**

"Alright, I've got them basically built." Akira said walking down the stairs with several weapons in his arms, the previous weapons used by the Phantom Thieves, and their new Mecha-shift Weapons.

"Nice." Ryuji said picking up his new shotgun club, setting it to its club form to give it a swing.

Yusuke took his new assault rifle katana and drew the blade, giving it a test swing for balance before smiling.

"Nice." Ann said as her new SMG unfolded into a whip before seamlessly pulling back together.

Haru lifted her grenade launcher and unfolded it into its battle axe form, "Heavier than my old axe, but nothing I won't adjust to."

Morgana took his Phantom Thief form and grabbed his weapon, at first it looked like a normal scimitar with a slightly thicker than normal blade, but with the flick of a small switch the top half of the blade split into a 'Y' with a line of rubber connecting the two points. "Mwe heh heh heh." Morgana chuckled as he launched a pellet at the wall, causing the pellet to sink halfway into the brick.

Makoto picked up her weapons, at first appearing to be a pair of tekko with four mid length spikes, one on each knuckle, and had three chambers for bullets, each on in between the spikes. Makoto raised an eyebrow before noticing small joints on the grip, and in turn slammed to two grips together, causing the spikes and chambers to quickly shift upward, and reforming into a single revolver that had a slightly split grip. Makoto quickly pulled the grip apart once again and found herself holding a pair of tekko.

"You did a really good job with these." Futaba said looking over Akira's new Knife pistol.

"Thanks." Akira said smiling, "Working with Iwai really helped me get some insight on how to build guns."

"Where's the ammo though?" Ryuji asked.

"That's the thing." Akira admitted sitting down, "The firing mechanisms haven't been finished yet. There's still some fine tuning I need to do for the weapons so they aren't ready to use just yet."

"Rats." Morgana said placing his weapon back on the table, "So why did you bring them out here in the first place?"

"To get your opinion on them so far..." Akira said, "And so you all can give them names."

"Names?" Ann asked, a little surprised. Understandable since they never bothered doing such a thing with their previous weapons.

"I see." Makoto said in understanding, "These are going to be our weapons for the foreseeable future, we aren't replacing them as we get better weapons now, just upgrading these with better parts."

"Putting it that way it makes sense to add our own personal touch to our weapons." Yusuke said, "I believe I shall name mine Ishikawa."

"That's Goemon's last name right?" Futaba asked, getting a nod from Yusuke.

"Well if that how we're gonna name them..." Morgana said, "I dub this sword La Vega, after the last name of Zorro's true identity."

"I think I'll call my weapon Gypsy." Ann said, "That's what Carmen was after all."

"I'm calling mine the Jolly Roger." Ryuji said, "Keeping with Captain Kidd's pirate motif after all."

"Milady appeared in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas." Haru said, "So I will call this weapon Dumas."

"Johanna was first documented by Jean De Mailly." Makoto said, "So I'll call these De Mailly."

"What your weapon going to be a called Akira?" Futaba asked handing the knife back to Akira.

"Lupin." Akira said, "Arsene's last name."

"So now that the naming out of the way..." Ryuji said, "Anyone got any plans for today?"

No one said anything.

"In that case." Morgana said, returning to his cat form and hopping onto the middle of the table, "Perhaps we should start securing our Infiltration route."

"All in favor?" Akira asked.

Everyone raised their hand, while Morgana raised a paw.

"Good, Ann where did you put the medicines?" Akira asked.

[Jacques's Palace: Safe Room 1]

[OST: King, Queen, and Slave]

"Alright." Mona said as everyone gathered around the table in the middle of the safe room, "Our main goal is to locate the Treasure and the fastest route to it."

"If we can find a map that will make navigating much easier for us." Oracle said, "So which way should we head once we leave the room?"

"Our entrance is closer the the left side of the castle." Joker said, "We'll try to find ourselves some stairs to get to the second floor and go from there."

"If this is anything like Kamoshida's Palace the Treasure's gotta be in or at least near the throne room." Skull said.

"What was Kamoshida's Palace like anyway?" Queen asked, having never really gotten the story behind the Palace that was the start of the Phantom Thieves.

"Let's not talk about that." Panther said with a shiver at the memories. "Ever."

"We'll take your word for it." Fox said. If they were reacting this badly to just talking about it...it was probably for the best the rest of them didn't know, "We'd better get moving now."

Joker nodded and opened the safe room door and stepped into the hallway, looking to the right the only door's there were to the main hall, in which experience told him would not be a good idea to go through just yet, and the door back to the storage room they first entered from.

On the left was only one door, however there was a Shadow standing guard with it's back turned to them.

"Looks like we've got a Shadow in the way Joker." Oracle said, "And I don't think he's planning on moving."

"Then let's move him." Joker said with a smirk, before dashing silently into the shadows of the nearby table, then dashing behind the Shadow, springing onto its back and grabbing its mask.

"What the-!?" The Shadow exclaimed before Joker ripped its mask off, causing it to rear back and explode into black ooze as Joker jumped off.

[OST: Persona 5: Last Surprise]

Joker, Queen, Skull, Panther, Fox, Mona, and Noir all surrounded the black mass as it burst out once again, revealing the Shadow's true forms.

Two of the three figures that burst forth were little white snowmen with short arms and legs, a blue cap and a black mouth in a smile with round black eyes. Jack Frost to be specific.

The third figure was larger one wearing red armor that had two horns on the helmet, it had on a yellow cape and held a lance, it lastly rode a deep violet horse. This was an Eligor.

"This shouldn't be too tough." Skull said reaching for his mask, "Let's go Captain! Zionga!" Skull shouted tearing his mask off.

Captain Kidd appeared with his clawed hand over his eyes as if measuring the distance between him and his target, before a bolt of lightning shot from his cannon arm, electrocuting Eligor and knocking the Shadow down.

"Nice one Skull!" Oracle called out, "Now pass the baton!"

"All yours Panther!" Skull called out walking past Panther, high fiving her as he did. In return Panther spun in a 360, stopping with her fist near the ground, just as a burst of energy arose from below her, Skull's latent power from his previous attack empowering her next attack.

"Let's go Carmen!" Panther shouted tearing her mask off, "Maragion!"

Carmen appeared, throwing the body that was on the thorn leash to the side, sending out flames that harmed both the Jack Frosts and Eligor. While Eligor wasn't bothered by the flames too much, the Jack Frost were knocked down.

With all three Shadows down Joker ran forward pulling his gun out and aimed it at Eligor, just as the other Phantom Thieves jumped in to close escape routes with their guns aimed at the Shadows.

Once the Shadows were clearly subdued for the moment, Joker decided it was time to start bolstering his power again. "Eligor." Joker said, "Lend me your power."

Eligor nodded as he stood back up, "I remember now, I am no Shadow, I am Eligor of the Emperor Arcana, I will aid you as your mask."

With that Eligor vanished in a flash of light, with the two Jack Frost being destroyed by the light, and was replaced by a mask exactly like the one Joker currently wore, which soon flew toward Joker.

Joker smirked and caught the mask, slamming it on top of his current mask in a blue flame.

[OST: Persona 5: Victory]

"Nice one, Joker." Mona said, "Now with more masks you've got more options again."

"Strange how I only had my own Personas back until now." Joker mused, he hadn't exactly discarded his other masks after defeating Yaldabaoth... That's a matter for another time though.

[Resume: King, Queen and Slave.]

Continuing on, Joker and the rest of the Thieves went to the door on the left of where their safe room was and opened it quietly.

On the other side of the door was a short hallway that ended in a staircase going up, but there was something more important next to the staircase.

"Well, at least we've got a map." Oracles said opening the frame that was around the map and pulling it from it's frame.

"And just like always the damn things not a complete map." Skull sighed.

"Still it's better than nothing." Fox said as the group looked at the map.

Most of the rooms in the Palace were small ones, the next large room in their path seemed to be three doors down on the next floor.

"Let's get going." Joker said rolling up the map and putting it in his pocket as he led the group upstairs.

After taking down another Shadow, and taking a Jack Frost as his newest mask, the group arrived at the next door and opened it to reveal them on the first floor of a large, two story library.

"That's a lot of books." Queen said looking around the room as Noir picked up one of the books.

"It's a business ledger." Noir said replacing it with another, "So is this one."

This time Panther picked up a book, "This one's listing a bunch of names." Panther said, "Coal Dust miners, Gale's Dusters, Dust for Less..."

"Those are all Dust providers that tried to start up their own Dust Companies." Oracle said, "That book must contain the name of every company the SDC's bought out or intentionally crushed."

This time Joker pulled out a book and checked the cover.

Joker's eye narrowed at the cover alone, "Looks like those rumors of shady business partners aren't rumors." He said.

"Hey, this one's full of names." Skull said opening a book, "Terra Foll-Lioness-Mining, Erik Shine- Basilisk Lizard- Disposed."

"What!?" Mona shouted taking the book from Skull and flipping though it, "Mining, Disposed, made example... this is a list of all the Faununs workers Jacques has ever employed!"

"This man is psychotic!" Panther exclaimed in alarm as she read over Mona's shoulder, "According to this one of the women workers was raped in front of the rest of her fellow workers as an example by one of the security force, then sent her to the deepest part of the mine she worked in to die... Under his orders!"

"Seems like Jacques is seriously enforcing the subjugation of Faunus." Fox said, "I don't think I can even call this a second class citizens treatment at the most."

"Let's get going." Skull said taking the book, "The more we read, the more I want to punch this guy in the face."

"Agreed." Joker said looking around the library, "I'm willing to bet there are stairwells and ladders in this place so we could easily skip several floors in this place."

Sure enough the ground found a spiraling stairwell, which they used to skip past the third floor and reach the fourth floor, seeing as they couldn't reach a fifth floor from the library.

After reaching the fourth floor and taking down another Shadow they opened up the door to the hallway, and took down yet another Shadow before going through one of the two doors in the hallway.

The first led them to a safe room, where they took a breather before leaving and moving to the second door.

Which led them to a large room that appeared to have a halve played game of chess going on... except the chess pieces were giant sized, and the whites had the Schnee Snowflake on them, the black pieces were sorely losing.

"Any idea what this means?" Panther asked as they walked into the center of the room, which was void of pieces.

"I think I know." Joker said, "The white pieces represent the SDC, the King being Jacques, while the Blacks are all opposition to his 'rule'. I'm guessing the Bishops, Rooks, Queen, King, Knights, and Pawns all represent The Grimm, The White Fang, Other Dust companies, Kingdom Officials, Rioters, and anything else he finds annoying... Not respectively of course."

"There's the smart man we all know who completely trounced us in the finals back in highschool." Skull sighed.

"Now what have we here?" A distorted voice asked from above, causing the Phantom Thieves to turn and face the source of the voice.

[OST: Persona 5: Blood of Villain]

Standing on a balcony above the White side of the Chess board was none other than Shadow Jacques, with a bored look on his face.

"It appears we have some uninvited guests in the castle." Shadow Jacques noted, "Come to bask in my glory have you? Or have you come to beg for Dust or a job?"

"Nothing like any of that asshole!" Skull shouted a raising his bat onto his shoulder.

"You're long overdue for your comeuppance after all you've done!" Queen sneered.

"So what does that make you all?" Shadow Jacques asked, "Faunus Rights Activists? Hmph, it doesn't matter in the slightest, once I find out who you are I can easily ruin your future. Perhaps I'll simply pay the police to create a false criminal record for you and have you arrested, just as I did to several Faunus families at the start of my career in the SDC."

"False records." Fox breathed.

"The cops are the same everywhere you go." Oracle growled.

"Now then..." Shadow Jacques said, "General!"

"General?" Joker mused.

From out behind the White Queen stepped Winter, or at least Jaques's cognition of Winter.

The differences between the cognition and the real Winter were as followed. The Cognition Winter's hair had no bangs drifting down, the cognition wore a white overcoat, with a gray undercoat, black sweater, a red necktie, pants the same color as the overcoat, and silver boots. Her bust seemed more compressed than the actual Winter's.

And her body was wooden, ball joints for her shoulders, elbows, knees and other joints, her jaw having slits going from the edges of her lips to straight down, with several strings floating behind her. However out of the six strings holding her, only three seemed to be held straight up, the strings connecting to her head, left leg, and left arm were drifting all over the area while the strings connected to her back, right leg, and right arm were straight up.

"Yes father?" The Cognitive Winter asked, her voice flat and emotionless.

"Destroy these nobodies." Shadow Jacques said as he walked away.

"Yes father." The Cognitive Winter said as it drew a sabre, "By order of King Jacques Schnee of Atlas, you are hereby ordered to execution. Have you any say in your defense?"

Joker looked the Cognitive Winter dead in her wooden eyes as he pulled out his pistol and aimed it at her, "Don't think we'll make this easy." Joker said.

Streams of darkness started to float off of the Cognitive Winter as she raised her sabre, before exploding into darkness.

[OST: Persona 5: Keeper of Lust]

When the darkness dispersed the Cognitive Winter was replaced by a large metallic horse with snowflake eyes. On top of the horse was a large wooden feminine figure holding a saber in it's right hand, it's head and left arm dangling lifelessly. Its wooden body was covered in crystal armor that was missing only at the joints.

"Now then." The Cognitive Winter, who had transformed into the creature the Phantom Thieves now faced, said. "By order of the king. DIE!"

The air around the Cognitive Winter grew colder as ice shot out from around her, aiming at everyone.

"Move!" Fox shouted pushing Panther out of the way, taking the blow intended for her.

"Thanks!" Panther replied standing back up, "Carmen and I aren't too good with the cold."

"Jack Frost!" Joker shouted as his hand was coated in blue flames, which he smacked on his own mask, causing the flames to run over the mask before he quickly tore it off, "Ice Break!"

When the mask came off of Joker, Arsene did not appear, instead it was Jack Frost, who gave a quick twirl before a round circle with ice symbols appeared in front of the Cognitive Winter appeared and shattered.

"Wh-What was that?" The Cognitive Winter demanded.

"Johanna!" Makoto shouted summoning her Persona, "Freila!"

The blast on Nuclear energy caused the Cognition to stumble to the side and growl, "Take this!" The Cognition growled, "Lunge!" It intoned as it leaped toward Joker, landing a slash on his side that caused him to stumble slightly.

"You okay Joker?" Oracle asked.

"Nothing to worry about." Joker said, "This Cognition is a weak one. Eligor!"

Replacing and tearing his mask off, Eligor appeared instead of Jack Frost, "Double Fangs!"

Eligor nodded and stabbed at the Cognitive Winter, causing two stabs to appear on it, knocking it back.

"How is this possible!?" The Cognitive Winter demanded.

"Because we've beaten tougher enemies than you." Morgana said, "Zorro! Miracle Punch!"

Zorro appeared, making a stabbing motion with his sword, causing a golden boxing glove on a spring to appear and punch the Cognitive Winter in the face, sending it tumbling, but it quickly straightened back up.

However it was drooping much more than usual.

"No, I can't lose like this!" The Cognitive Winter growled, "Desperation!"

Energy welled up under the Cognition as it traded defensive power for offensive power and then tried to slash at Skull, who easily jumped out of the way of the attack.

"Too slow!" Skull shouted as he took advantage to the Cognition's missed attack and swung his bat, nailing the Cognition in the head.

"Aaaaarrrrraaaagggghhhhh!" The Cognitive Winter cried out as the wooden body was separated from the horse and went flying. The two parts of the Cognition fading away into wisps of darkness.

[OST: Persona 5: Victory]

"Alright Skull!" Oracle shouted, "Nice swing."

"Thanks." Skull said, "Good to know I still have my swinging arm."

"We'd better clear out of the Palace for the moment though." Mona said, "The last thing we need is for the Shadows to find us after we just beat the Cognition. It might put them on high alert."

"We'll give it a couple of days to calm down then." Joker said, "Let's disappear everyone."

[]

[[Infiltration Log]]

[Infiltrated Castle Gardens]

[Obtained Front Gate Key]

[Infiltrated Castle]

[Found a Safe Room]

-New- [Infiltrated Castle Library]

-New- [Found a Safe Room]

-New- [Defeated Cognitive Winter]

 **[[]]**

 **Okay everyone, this is way overdue and it took longer than I wanted to write, but this week was hell for me.**

 **Anyway I'm sorry if the Palace exploration was a little weak, but I really couldn't come up with an exciting way to explain it- I mean can you look me in the (Metaphorical) eye and tell me the exact layout of every dungeon and what's in every room? Because I can't, I can only remember the rooms shit happens in.**

 **Anyway let me know what you think and I'll (Hopefully) see you all tomorrow with another story.**


	9. Chapter 8

**I really don't have much to say this chapter so I'll just get to writing it.**

 **[[]]**

"Wait, you mean you're having lunch with that Winter chick?" Ryuji asked in surprise when Akira made the announcement some time after breakfast.

"I called her up last night." Akira said, "I want to see her view on her life... And I did ask Haru before I made the plan."

Haru smiled happily, the last thing Akira wanted was to make his girlfriend think he was cheating on her.

"That would explain why Haru's going with him." Yusuke mused.

That was Haru's terms for Akira to have lunch with Winter, she wanted to make sure Akira didn't end up flirting with her.

Akira shuddered at the memory of why Haru was like that. The night before Valentines day he ended up having a nightmare of where he was dating all of his female Confidants back in Tokyo... He still occasionally flinched whenever Haru glared at him even in the slightest.

"This is a good chance for us to see how Winter views her family." Morgana said, "Based on what we saw in Jacques's Palace, Winter is viewed as nothing more than a puppet and his in on the Atlas Military."

"Judging from the severed strings however..." Makoto said, "I don't think Jacques has as much control over her as he would like."

"Jeez, I'm hating this guy more and more by the second." Ryuji groaned.

"Ann, see if you can find someone who is willing to buy this stuff." Akira said sliding Ann's old school back over to her, inside it was several silver plates and other similar expensive tableware.

"It's amazing how we don't even notice you breaking things open anymore." Futaba noted, "Still I think you broke open more than what's in the bag."

"Most of them had those Dust Crystals in them." Akira said, "No real point in selling those."

While this conversation was going on, Futaba was scrolling through data on her Scroll, "Hmm..." She hummed with a raised eyebrow.

Ryuji moved to ask what Futaba was humming about when there was a knock on the door. "Wonder who that is?" Ryuji muttered standing up to get the door.

When Ryuji opened the door, he jumped back, "Whoa, Schnee!?" Ryuji shouted in surprise and a bit of alarm.

"Hello against mister Sakamoto." Winter said politely, "May I come in?"

Ryuji blinked for a moment, before nodding. "Uhh, yeah sure." He said stepping aside.

Winter walked past Ryuji and entered the main room, taking a look at all of the assembled Phantom Thieves as she did, "Hello." She said, "May I ask who you all are?"

Ann was the first to respond. "Ann Takamaki." Ann said, introducing herself and standing up to shake Winter's hand.

"It's nice to meet you miss Takamaki." Winter said shaking her hand.

"Yusuke Kitagawa." Yusuke said standing up.

"You're the one who painted my sisters newest portrait correct?" Winter asked, "A well done likeness."

"Makoto Nijima ma'am." Makoto said.

Winter gave her a nod.

"My names Haru Okumura, I'm Akira's girlfriend." Haru said, "I recall Akira mentioning that I was joining you."

"Ah yes, and I understand." Winter said with a nod, "You don't really trust me to be around your boyfriend alone. Understandable I suppose."

"Actually it's more the other way around." Futaba said closing her scroll, "Akira's got a bit of a record for getting girls attracted to him."

"Not intentionally of course." Akira pointed out, "Anyway that's Futaba Sakura, she's practically a sister to me as her father is like a father to me."

"I see." Winter said with a nod as she looked over them one last time before turning to Akira and Haru. "Well then, I've arranged for a table for three at a Mistralian restaurant, shall we be going?"

[]

The way to the place Winter has suggested was a fair distance from the apartment the group lived in.

About halfway through the second block after they had left, Akira and Haru stopped upon seeing a pair of Faunus huddled in the snow, Winter stopping herself a few feet after noticing they had stopped.

"Akira? Haru?" Winter asked.

Akira didn't respond, instead looking closely at the two Faunus. Two girls, presumably a mother and daughter, were in the lowest level of the snow wearing little more than thin shirts usually worn indoors, the only sensibly warm thing the had on were tattered scarves around their necks, but the rabbit ears that poked out from their blue hair had no such form of protection and were covered in a thin layer of snow.

"W-what d-do you w-w-want from us." The mother said, stuttering from the cold.

Instead of directly answering, Akira pulled out roughly 3,000 Lien from his pocket and held it out the the mother and daughter, "Take it, find somewhere Faunus friendly and get you and you daughter some warm clothes and something to eat." Akira said warmly.

The ten year old girl looked at the money Akira held out before looking at him, "You're just gonna take it back from us." She pouted clutching tighter to her mother.

Akira didn't remove his hand, instead he simply slid it into the mother's arm before standing up and walking off.

He barely caught the mother saying 'Thank you.'

"I'm surprised you'd do something like that." Winter said when he came back, "There aren't many people who'd help out the Faunus like that."

"Me and my friends have always been the kind to stand up for those who are too scared or helpless to do so themselves." Akira said.

"How so?" Winter asked.

"Perhaps we should take our seats first." Haru said as the trio arrived at the Mistralian restaurant.

[With Futaba]

"That's weird." Futaba mused looking at her scroll, more specifically the plans of Atlas academy.

"What's up?" Morgana asked as everyone remaining, that being Ryuji, Makoto, and Yusuke, turned their attention to her.

"Well, I'm looking up the layout of Atlas and... Something doesn't seem right." Futaba said.

Yusuke, Makoto and Ryuji all gathered around Futaba to look at what she was looking at.

"Uhh... What's the deal with the blueprints?" Ryuji asked.

"It looks like they've been doctored." Yusuke said, catching some details.

"How can you tell?" Ryuji asked, not seeing how he'd know.

"Well, Futaba's brought up the whole blueprint, and the supposed lowest level of the Academy is still more than a fair distance from the bottom margin compared to the others." Yusuke said, "Plus the cut off on the elevator is off by a margin, as if it were recently added into it."

"What you think is down there?" Morgana asked, now very curious.

"Judging from the fact they cut it from the blueprints I'd say something valuable." Futaba said, "And not in the monetary sense."

"So... it's like a Treasure then?" Ryuji asked, starting to sound excited.

"That might be a good way of putting it actually." Makoto said, "It's not supposed to be on the blueprints so whatever is down there is as valuable to Atlas as a Treasure is to a Palace."

"Should we think about stealing it?" Ryuji asked.

"Not anytime soon." Futaba said, "We'd need to find a way to infiltrate the academy as a staff member and gain the trust of the general to the point we'd be told about what's down there."

"Rats." Ryuji muttered.

"However..." Futaba said, "I've noticed that more than half of the current Atleasian army is nothing more that machines. Seriously, has no one in Remnant heard of Terminator? Does it even have an equivalent here?"

"So all we need to cripple Atlas is a virus." Makoto said with a frown.

"And with how much peace has reigned over Remnant, I doubt Atlas has done much to their firewalls." Futaba said.

"Atlas seems like the most dangerous of the kingdoms, but it's strength is also its weakness." Yusuke said, letting out an amused chuckle at how...poetic that almost sounded.

"Yep." Futaba said, "And it shouldn't be too hard to use the CCT Tower in Atlas to reveal ourselves to the world!" she grinned. It was time to make some preparations.

 **[[]]**

 **Okay so, I know this took a while to get out, but really the Phantom Thieves aren't going to be in Atlas too long so I just can't think of much for them to do that doesn't involve settling in seeing as I plan on having them leave soon.**

 **Anyway, in case you haven't seen it yet, anyone who is running a standard (Non-paying) membership on the Rooster Teeth site can go and see the first episode of Volume 5, and boy does it drop some bombshells... and a couple of laughs.**

 **Seriously, Qrow when he's absolutely hammered is hilarious XD**


	10. Chapter 9

**Welp, felt like writing, didn't have the muse for anything so I just felt like getting some work done on this story.**

 **Also, more Palace delving, yay!**

 **[[]]**

[July 5- 10 days before Speech]

"So." Futaba said as we gathered around the table in the morning, "We're heading back to Jacques's Palace today?" Futaba asked.

"That's the plan." Akira said cleaning his glasses, "We've got ten days before the speech, making it only a week left to send the Calling Card."

"Jeez, time sure does seem to fly doesn't it?" Ryuji muttered.

"We have been busy to be honest." Ann said, looking back at what they'd been up to since coming here.

"Well, then." Makoto said, "Let's finish our breakfast and get back to breaking and entering."

[Jacques's Palace- Safe Room 2]

[P5 Ost- King Queen and Slave.]

"Are we ready?" Joker asked, looking back at his team.

"We are ready." Noir said lifting her axe onto her shoulder.

Joker nodded and left the safe room with the rest of the Thieves, slipping back into the Chess room, which had changed slightly as before there were two Black Pawns on the board, but now the white Queen had taken one of the Pawns.

"Looks like Jacques has crushed someone else." Fox said with a frown, "In his mind at least."

"Quiet." Mona shushed them.

Remaining quiet, the Thieves heard a voice from the balcony directly above them.

"Father has been successful in stamping out another riot it seems." A voice familiar to half the group spoke, "At this rate, I doubt I'll have much to quell when I inherit the Kingdom."

"Weiss..." Mona whispered, "At least a cognition."

"And with General Winter Schnee supporting us we can rule over the other Kingdoms through Dust alone." The Cognitive Weiss said, "And once that's done I'll finish what father started, I'll see to it that all the Faunus seeking jobs are slowly made extinct as the inferior race they are, just as father wanted."

The sound of wood hitting marble was heard before the sound of a door opening and closing filled the room.

"The hell is wrong with that man?" Skull grumbled at the insanity they were hearing.

"The Cognitive realm truly frightens me at times." Fox said, "A Person's true nature unbound and unmasked for all to see."

"Never has the phrase, 'The Truth is Ugly' ever meant so much." Joker mused as the group walked into the next room.

The room was filled with only a Chest, and a table with a half played Chess game on it, one that was in a much more sensible size.

Joker walked over to the chest, but noticed it was sealed shut with no lock.

"No luck huh?" Oracle asked, "I'm willing to bet the door is locked too."

"It is." Noir confirmed, pulling on the door opposite of them.

Joker then went over to the chess game on the table and looked at it. He may not be as familiar with the rules of Chess as he was Shogi, but he knew the movement limits of the Pieces.

And right now the Black King was in check with three different ways it could move and still be in check.

"Maybe we have to win this in order to proceed." Mona said looking at the board.

"How?" Skull asked, "I may not know much about chess, but the Blacks are looking pretty damn screwed over right now."

Joker remained silent as he looked at the board, the King was in the back behind three pawn so it couldn't evade to the side, and the Queen was in the back row with a pawn in attacking range.

Then he remembered one of the rules of chess a fair number of people forgot about. Promotion.

"Pawn takes Queen." Joker said knocking over the White Queen with the Black Pawn, "Pawn Promotes to Queen."

In a flash the Black Pawn changed into a Black Queen, "Checkmate." Joker said.

In response, the sound of a lock clicking could be heard throughout the room.

"Dude, where did you learn that rule from?" Skull asked.

"I looked it up after playing a few games of Shogi with Hifumi, I started to wonder about the similarities between it and Chess and found this trick in the Chess Rules." Joker explained.

"Failing to take care of a piece as weak as the pawn resulted in a powerful foe that could defeat anything." Fox mused at how poetic that almost sounded.

Joker walked back over to the chest and this time it flung open with ease, "Let's see." Joker mused reaching inside before pulling out a 1,000 Lien card and a few Blank Cards for Fox to work his skills on.

"We could find some good use for this." Panther grinned, "Let's keep moving."

They stepped out of the mini chess room and entered a hallway, lined with large windows. Joker looked out the nearest one and grinned before breaking the latch on it.

"What was that for?" Queen asked, a little surprised by the sudden action.

"Shortcut back up." Joker explained pointing out the window, as it showed that the window was overhanging several ledges that the Phantom Thieves could use as steps.

"I see." Fox said with a nod, "That would definitely be helpful."

The group turned back to the hallway and noticed an elevator at the back of it, guarded by a pair of Shadows.

"Looks like we'll have to fight these guys." Oracle noted, "You guys ready?"

"Always." Joker said pulling out his pistol and running toward the Shadows.

"Intruders!" They shouted in unison and began to burst into black goop.

[P5 OST: Last Surprise]

The goop burst up once again to reveal three figures.

Two of them looked human, black haired boys with bowl cut hair, their pale faces covered mostly by blue scarves, wearing white armor, with yellow capes and holding spears. Setanta, two of them.

The third figure was larger than the Setanta's, with golden, angular skin, and a muscular build, holding a dual ended club and wearing bed shorts. A Kin-Ki.

"Kin-Ki and Two Setana's." Oracle said, "You remember their weaknesses?"

"Milady!" Noir shouted tearing off her mask, summoning her Persona, "Mapsidyne!"

A burst of colorful waves pelted Kin-Ki and the Setana's, striking their shared weakness and bringing them to their knees.

"All out attack!" Joker called out.

The world turned to a dark red as the seven thieves were left unaffected before leaping into the air. The scene then shifted to the silhouette of the Shadows as they were bombarded by attacks coming from seven unidentifiable black blurs darting in and out to attack them.

The scene then made a severe shift, a fancy table with a teapot and chair fell from above, with Noir taking a spin to take a seat on the chair, a cup of tea in her hand as she lift it to take a sip.

"Coup De Grâce" Noir declared as the background shifted to show large flowers as black blood sprayed from the Shadows.

-Adieu-

[P5 OST: King, Queen, and Slave,]

The table and chair dissolved as the group sped past where the Shadows were and into the elevator.

"Where does that chair and table even come from?" Skull muttered as the elevator went up.

[]

The elevator stopped and opened up to reveal a large room that had a room in the center of it, two lines of columns on both sides of the door to the smaller room intended to keep things in a line.

"The Treasure's in that room, I can feel it." Mona said excitedly.

"Let's see if we can find another way in there." Joker said looking around, then he noticed that there were rows of columns on either side of the smaller room, each one shorter as the line moved further away, with vent openings at the top of the highest columns, "Up there." He pointed out.

"Man this is just too easy." Mona said grinning.

Moving around to the lowest of the columns, which was on the opposite site of the room from the door, the Phantom Thieves began to hop along the columns and soon managed to crawl into the vents.

On the other side of the vents the Thieves found themselves on scaffoldings, which were high enough to reach the ceiling of the room... of which there was a giant portrait of Jacques painted on.

"There." Oracle pointed out, pointing at just behind the crystal Throne that dominated the otherwise empty room, which stood in front of a balcony.

Just behind the throne was a shimmering glow that gave off rainbow colors.

"The Treasure~" Mona breathed in awe, "Well, that's our infiltration route taken care of."

"Agreed." Joker said as the group left the room, "Let's head back home and call it a night."

[P5: Victory]

[[Infiltration Log]]

[Infiltrated Castle Gardens]

[Obtained Front Gate Key]

[Infiltrated Castle]

[Found a Safe Room]

[Infiltrated Castle Library]

[Found a Safe Room]

[Defeated Cognitive Winter]

-New- [Solved Chess Puzzle]

-New- [Opened Shortcut]

-New- [Infiltrated Throne Room]

-New- [Secured Infiltration Route]

 **[[]]**

 **Well folks, that's the chapter.**

 **Sorry if it seemed short, but after I had that little Chess Puzzle done I just got so excited for the next chapter to write.**

 **Plus I didn't really have too many idea's for the rest of the Palace other that just fighting Shadows, which just like in the game, gets boring after a while, cool de-masking or not.**

 **Anyway, next chapter is... well.**

 **Calling Card and Shadow Jacques Boss fight, I hope I can focus on those to make both of them good.**

 **But for now I'm going to bed, it's f**king 1 in the morning I'm dead tired.**


	11. Chapter 10

**Well everyone, it's finally time for what you've been waiting for over the past couple of day.**

 **So without wasting anymore time, let's get to the Calling Card.**

 **[[]]**

[July 6 - 9 Days before Speech]

"Are we going to send the Calling Card?" Yusuke asked as they sat around the table, discussing their next plan of action.

"That's right." Akira nodded, "Today we'll do a last minute stock of everything we've got and then create the Calling Card."

"Speaking of which." Ann said, "We're repeating the Shido card, right?"

"Yep." Futaba said, "I've managed to worm my way into the CCT so I can take over at a moment's notice."

"All we have to do then is record right?" Ryuji asked with an excited grin, "Then let's get to it."

Akira nodded and stood up, a grin worthy of a Phantom Thief's appearing on his face.

[July 7- 8 Days before speech]

[Patch- Rose-Branwen-Xiao Long home]

"Nothing good on today." Pouted a 14 year old girl. She had red tipped black hair and silver eyes, she was wearing a long sleeved black blouse with a high collar and red trim at the end of the sleeves, a black waist cincher with red lace at the front and a red trimmed black skirt, thick black stockings and red laced, black combat boots. Atop all of this she was wearing a red hooded cloak. Ruby Rose.

"So?" Another woman asked, this one 3 (Until Ruby's next birthday) year's older and had lilac eyes with long blonde hair that had a cowlick sticking up at the top. She was wearing a tan jacket that left her lower stomach bare, with golden brown piping and short, puffy sleeves with black cuffs that featured two gold buttons, underneath this she wore a low cut yellow crop top with her emblem on the left breast in black, a brown belt covered by a pleated brown piece of material reaching from hip to hip around the back of her waist, with her emblem emblazoned on the right-most pleat in gold, underneath this is a longer, white, asymmetrical piece of material reaching to her knee on the right side, as well as a pair of black mini-shorts, she wore brown, knee-high boots and orange over-the-knee socks, with the right sock pushed down just below the knee, a lavender bandana tied around her left knee, an orange infinity scarf and black fingerless gloves. This was Ruby's half sister, Yang Xiao Long.

"It's early morning sis, nothing good comes on for a while." Yang said.

"She's got a point Rubes." A man called. He was far older than the two girls, he was blonde, though his hair was significantly shorter than Yangs, and he had a stubble of a beard on his face, with his right having a tattoo similar to a heart on it. At the moment he was not fully dressed, wearing only his usual cargo shorts and a yellow undershirt. Taiyang Xiao Long, Ruby and Yang's father.

"Besides girls, most kids your age are usually either at school or sleeping in on their days off." said a fourth person. This was also an older man, he had black hair and red eyes and a slight stubble on his jawline, he was wearing a red tattered cloak on his back as well as a gray dress shirt with a long tail and black dress pants, and black dress shoes.

"Hey!" Ruby pouted changing the channel once more.

"Shouldn't the same be said for old guys like you two?" Yang teased.

"We're not THAT old Yang." Qrow grumbled looking for his flask, which Tai had hidden like he usually does when Qrow comes over.

"Will you quit looking for that thing Qrow?" Tai asked getting annoyed and passing Qrow a cup of coffee.

Ruby and Yang sighed as they turned back to the TV, which was beginning to flicker and cover in static.

"Uncle Qrow... Dad?" Ruby asked as the screen was completely covered in static.

"That's weird." Tai muttered looking at the TV.

Just before the symbol of the Phantom Thieves appeared clearly in the static. A symbol of a red top hat with a black and red ballroom mask at an angle below it, the red half which was closer to the middle had it's eye hole ablaze in white flame.

[Schnee Family Mansion: Recreational room]

Weiss was smiling contently as she leaned into Winter's arm, her father and brother had not arrived just yet and she was pleased at the fact that she could spend time with her sister like this.

Her sister felt the same way.

Of course when the door opened Winter quickly pushed Weiss upright as Klein, Jacques, and Whitley walked into the room.

"Let us see what is going on today." Klein said turning on the TV.

Only for it to be covered in static.

"Must be snowing quite heavily outside today." Jacques muttered.

Then the logo appeared on screen.

"What the..." Winter muttered narrowing her eyes, "Did someone hack into the CCT?"

[Kou Kuana: Belladonna house]

Sitting in the living room, leaving the TV on so they could receive the weather report, were three people, one man and two women, all of them Faunus

The man was massive in muscle mass, and height, with a rather impressive black beard that blended well with his black hair, he wore an open dark violet coat with white fur trim, exposing his hairy chest, over his beige pants is a matching sash that wraps around his waist and is secured with a large, silver metal buckle on the shoulder of his coat is a silver metal spaulder, which through a pair of curved strips across the chest attaches as a clasp on the opposite front panel of the coat and the white toes of his black leather boots have a shape reminiscent of paws with claws at the tips.

This was Ghira Belladonna, chieftain of Kou Kuana, former leader of the White Fang.

The first of the two woman was clearly a cat Faunus due to the cat ears on her head mixed in with her black hair, she also had yellow eyes. She has three gold piercings on her cat ears - two on her right, one on her left, wearing a black hakama and sandals with white tabi socks, over this, she wears a black shrug with a long right sleeve and a shorter left sleeve, gold leaf trim adorning the opening on the front she wore long, black arm warmers that extend to the middle finger the left warmer has a purple band tied around the top and a pair of gold bangles around the wrist around her waist is a black and gold sash that trails behind her, with a gold flower-shaped buckle at the end.

Kali Belladonna, Ghira's wife.

The third person was not related to the Belladonnas. She had orange eyes and wild black hair long enough to reach her chin, a pair of tiger ears on her head that had earrings on them, two on each, as well as two larger earring on her human ears, she also had tattoos on her body that resembled tiger stripes and a red jewel on her forehead. she was dressed with a form fitting black dress with light green accents on the rims of the outfit; the dress left most of her back open, had two long splits on the side which revealed a pair of black shorts, a shorter split in the front and a small squared keyhole, over the dress she wore a back revealing red cape with gold accents, as well as a green waist cincher with red rims that had a black belt over it, which fastened a green pouch on her right hip, she wore black stockings in conjunction with green sandals that had red laces which were tied to her calves, as well as a black elbow length fingerless glove on her right hand.

This was Sienna Khan, current leader of the White Fang.

"I can't exactly say I approve of your methods even after all this time Sienna." Ghira said, "However I have noticed the group near Vale has become increasingly violent despite your orders on using violence ONLY when necessary."

Sienna, to her credit, manage to keep her face calm, "Yes, Adam Taurus has been growing... unsettled as of late according to his reports." Sienna said, "He's letting his anger get to him. Thankfully he hasn't turned to violence on his allies."

"Has Blake been doing alright?" Kali asked, "She doesn't really call too often."

"According to Adam, Blake is doing fine, though she has been growing distant from his as of late." Sienna said, "Well, he's implied it."

That's when two sets of feline ears twitched as all three people turned to the TV screen, which had become covered in static.

"Damn signal." Ghira said standing up, just in time for the Logo to plant itself on the screen.

[Beacon: Break Room]

"I don't see you leave your office just to come here for coffee Professor Ozpin." Said a blonde haired woman whose hair was tied in a bun, she was wearing a white long sleeved pleated top with a wide keyhole neckline with flared cuffs on her arms, her legs were covered by a black, waist high pencil thin skirt and black stockings with black boots, over her shoulders was a tattered cape that seemed more designed as such over worn and torn.

"Well to be perfectly honest Glynda, I ran out of my personal blend. It seems the shipment was delayed a bit." Ozpin said, he was a man with silver hair and brown eyes covered by a pair of glasses, he wore an unzipped black suit over a black buttoned up vest, with a green cowl around his neck, dark green pants and black shoes. In one hand he held a simple looking cane with a a knuckle guard alongside the handle.

"Now that's a surprise." Glynda said turning on the T.V. to check the weather forecast

Only for it to show static around the Phantom Thieves Logo.

"Ozpin." Glynda said urgently, causing Beacon's Headmaster to turn.

"What have we here?" Ozpin murmured.

[White Fang Encampment near Vale]

Two people were leaned over a scroll on a table, one man, one woman.

The woman has amber eyes and long black hair with a pair of black cat ear poking out of it, purple eyeshadow in catseye style around her eyes. She wore a black buttoned vest with coattails and a single silver button on the front. Underneath this is a white, sleeveless, high necked, crop undershirt and white shorts with a zipper on the front of each leg, black low-heeled boots and full stockings with a color gradation of black to purple at her ankles, her emblem visible on the outside of both thighs just below her shorts in white, on her left arm is a detached sleeve with a silver cuff around her bicep, and black ribbons are wrapped around both forearms. A small, loose scarf is wrapped around her neck and a gray magnetic backpack is strapped to her back, hidden by her hair.

The man on the other hand had red hair with bull horns coming out of it, his eyes hidden by the Grimm styled mask on his face, he wore a long-sleeved black trench coat with slit sleeves and more red designs and a white symbol on the left side, it was red on the inside with red flame-like accents at the bottom and his wilting rose emblem on the back over a white floral design. The coat was only half-buttoned, exposing a red shirt with a black line running parallel to his collar under it, he wore long black pants, black shoes with red soles and black gloves with more red emblems on the forehand, finished with a black belt with white domino marks on it.

On the scroll was nothing but static and the Phantom Thieves Logo.

"Blake, what is this?" The man asked.

"I'm not sure Adam." Blake admitted, "I was looking up the weather in case we had to move camp when this just hijacked the signal."

"Interesting." Adam mused.

[Atlas Academy- Ironwoods Office]

"I don't care what the point of this hacking is at the moment, I want to know how it's being done and how we can get rid of them!" General Ironwood demanded, he was a man with black hair with white sides, and grey eyes, a strip of metal over his right eyebrow. His attire was just like the Cognitive Winters... Only fit for a male.

Ironwood cut the call on his scroll as he glared at the TV in front of him, "Who the hell managed to do this?" He muttered.

[Atlas- Main Street]

Hundreds of Atlas citizens looked up at the massive TV on one of the taller buildings in Atlas pointing at the Phantom Thieves Logo.

Two of the 'Civilians' were a disguised Salem, and her... henchwoman, Cinder Fall.

Salem's disguise was pretty simple, her normally white skin was painted pale, her eyes hidden behind blue contacts, and her coat lacking any sort of markings.

Cinder was a woman had amber eyes and long black hair, she wore a red dress that hung off her shoulders, which was currently barely visible under the long red coat she wore that covered all but the dark, glass, high heels she wore.

"We may have to have Arthur take a break from designing that virus." Salem noted, "Atlas is sure to improve their security after this."

"Mistress." Cinder whisper holding out her Scroll to Salem, "This is being shown world wide."

"So..." Salem mused, "This isn't just a message, it's an announcement."

[Screen Focus]

[P5 OST- Wake up, Get up, Get out there! (Instrumental)]

"Hellooooo Remnant!" A distorted male, punk-like voice announced

"We bring you people a message." A distorted young woman's voice said.

"Atlas, Mistral, Vale, Vacuo, Menagerie." A more refined, but still distorted, males voice said, "You may say that you are united against the Grimm, but your people are not."

"That's right." A deeper, serious, distorted woman's voice said, "You claim to be united, but in truth you are more separated than united. The Faunus and humanities treatment of them has already caused you problems."

"The White Fang is a result of this." A much higher pitched, yet still distorted, woman's voice rang out, "You guys just kept pushing them around and cried foul when they began to push back. And that's causing the Grimm to surge."

"And there are people whose own greed and prejudice that escalate this." A distorted, yet more refined woman's voice declared, "With a fearsome foe escalating and looming over you walls you seek to simply put aside the protection of others for your own good."

"And let's not think the White Fang is innocent." A boyish voice said, still distorted with the others, "You guys just ramp up the violence when everyone else does, and that makes matters worse for everyone. Including yourselves."

"Because of this, Remnants is in more danger than is really should be." The Punk voice said, "So now it's time we made our world debut!"

"And it's time for us to reveal our target." The high pitched voice cheered, "Why it's none other than-"

The screen was then cut off, replaced by placeholder bars.

[With Futaba]

"Heh, the People of Remnant are a bit slower than the good old Japanese Police." Futaba chuckled with a massive grin, "Too bad, cause either way..."

Futaba pressed a key on her Scroll, which was showing a map of Remnant, which had several red X's on it, but those were quickly replaced by cat head-like logo's, which then began to multiply at an astounding rate.

"I win~" Futaba sang.

[On the Screen]

"Jacques Schnee!" The high pitched woman's' voice declared.

"Take it away, Leader!" The punk like voice said.

"Sir Jacques Schnee." A new voice said, though his voice distorted it carried a vibe of 'Listen'.

On screen appeared a silhouette, the only color on him was his white mask, and red gloves, the trenchcoat was seen fluttering behind him, and his hair was so painfully average it would be impossible to identify him on his hair alone.

"A great sinner of Greed for both Money and Power. You are a man whose uses his authority to mercilessly deny the Faunus their hard earned rewards and uses his own children as puppets to further his own desires and image. We have decided to make you confess all of your crimes with you own mouth. We will take your Heart, your Distorted Desires, without fail." The man said, "We are the Phantom Thieves of Hearts."

The Screen then cut to static.

[Patch: Rose- Branwen- Xiao Long home]

[OST End]

"Whoa..." Ruby said completely dumbfounded.

"Did... Did they just announce they're going the rob the SDC's CEO?" Tai asked shocked.

"Well you can't say they lack in style." Yang said grinning, "Wonder if they'll succeed?"

"I'm more worried at how easily they hacked the CCT." Qrow said, "They only sent a message this time, but they could easily shut down the entire CCT if they wanted to."

"You worry too much Qrow." Tai said, "Tell you what, if they manage to convince Jacques to come clean I'll stop hiding your flask."

"Like that'll happen." Qrow said with a snort.

[Schnee Mansion- Recreational Room]

"What are these maniacs talking about?!" Weiss demanded.

"I have no idea Weiss." Jacques said standing up, glaring at the static, "But rest assured they won't be stealing anything and I will not be confessing about anything that isn't true."

"I certainly hope so." Winter said, "Furthermore I hope we can catch these Thieves, the fact they hacked the CCT is worrying."

The entire scene suddenly darkened, with Jacques being replaced by his Shadow.

"So these Thieves think they can steal from me?" Shadow Jacques scoffed, "Well in that case I'll just have to deal with those plebeians personally."

[Kou Kuana: Belladonna house]

"The must be incredibly brave or incredibly insane." Sienna said, "Announcing their intentions to Jacques worldwide."

"Somehow..." Kali said, "I think they may just be able to pull it off."

"How can you be so sure?" Sienna asked.

"A gut instinct I suspect." Ghira said, "Still though, these... Phantom Thieves of Hearts seem to have their own goals in mind. Though why they chose to target Jacques first is beyond me."

"I'm surprised they didn't choose to target me." Sienna said, "A 'Terrorist' leader."

[Beacon Break Room]

"Insane, they're insane." Glynda sighed after the screen flickered out, "Ozpin you know just how much power Jacques has, they aren't going to succeed at this."

"Perhaps they will Glynda." Ozpin said, "Remember they said his 'Distorted Desires'. I highly doubt any increase to security would prove an issue to these people when their target to steal is not exactly a tangible object."

"Still though." Glynda said, "How are they going to get Jacques to admit his wrongdoings?"

"What makes anyone admit their crimes in sorrow?" Ozpin said, "Guilt, and conscience."

[White Fang encampment]

"Are they serious in attacking the SDC directly?" Adam scoffed, "We can barely slip away with Dust Shipments and these people think they can rob Jacques directly?"

"What if they can do it?" Blake asked, "I mean what if they manage to convince Jacques to admit his crimes to the Faunus?"

"As if." Adam scoffed, "But I will respect them if they can do it, even if they do turn out to be a bunch of humans."

[Ironwoods Office]

"Increase Security around the Schnee mansion." Ironwood demanded over his scroll, "No, I don't want androids for this one, I want the most attentive soldiers on this job."

With that Ironwood closed his scroll before returning his gaze to the TV.

"Whoever you Phantom Thieves of Hearts are..." Ironwood said, "I will make sure you all end up locked away for hacking into the CCT. You could easily create so much damage from that alone."

[Atlas- Main Street]

"These people are getting more interesting the more they act." Salem said with a chuckle.

"Mistress?" Cinder asked curiously.

"Cinder, once you've obtained Autumn's power I want you to attempt to recruit these Phantom Thieves." Salem said, "They'll be undoubtedly useful when it's time."

[Schnee Mansion: Front Gates.]

[P5 OST: Life will Change]

"Heh, with a crowd like this no one will notice us slip into his Palace." Morgana said from Akira's bag.

"Jeez." Ryuji said, "I was expecting a crowd, but we've got a full on riot here."

"'Scuse me." Said a green haired Wolf Faunus girl holding a white sign slipping through the group of eight.

"I see what you mean." Makoto said, then she looked at the front gates, "Winter's coming through the door. She's probably going to patrol the place looking for places we can slip in."

"Too bad we aren't slipping in through that way." Futaba said holding up her Scroll.

[Jacques's Palace]

"Let's go." Joker said leaping onto the fallen statue of Jacques.

The group slipped through the garden without alerting the mass of Shadows that were patrolling the place and made it to the front door.

From there Joker lead the group up to their new entrance by leaping onto a pedestal, then onto the arch above the door, quickly leaping onto the balcony on the second floor, then onto the third floor roof, where they ran up the slope of the roof up to the opened window and kicked it open.

"No Shadows." Joker said running to the elevator with the rest of the group and stepping in.

The elevator went up to the room that held Jacques's Throne Room, where the Cognitive Winter stood with her weapon drawn.

"No need to fight her again." Oracle said, "We've got a side entrance."

"Let's go then." Skull said, "Time to make that bastard speak his crime all over the world."

Joker quickly slipped past the sight of the Cognitive Winter and climbed up to the ventilation entrance and into the Throne Room.

"There's the Treasure." Mona said leaping down to the ground floor.

However when he landed he had taken the form of a Chibi walking Cat, and had quickly sped over the Treasure before latching onto it.

The Treasure was a Crown, too large to actually wear, but still easily carried by one person, it had a white velvet body surrounded by crystal that had been woven into the shape of snowflakes, with Dust Crystals placed in the center of each snowflake, with a single white crystal on top.

"Mmmreeeoooow." Mona cooed, eyes shining, much to the amusement of his teammates who couldn't help but let out amused chuckles at the old reaction.

[Persona 5: Blood of Villain]

However soon after Mona was thrown off of the crown when it shot across the room and onto the balcony above the Throne, this caused the Phantom Thieves to leap back and stand right in the middle of the space between the Throne and the main door.

"So the Thieves have finally come." Shadow Jacques said holding the Crown before handing it to the figure next to him.

It was another Cognition, more specifically the Cognitive Weiss.

She too looked as if she were made of wood, though instead of being dressed as a general, she was wearing a white dress that had a massively puffed out lower part with snowflake designs running down it, the dress was form fitting on her body, showing just how little chest she actually had (Which was actually barely less than her real life chest size), the sleeves were splayed at the cuffs, so show her white gloves, one of which was holding a large hand fan. Her the ponytail on her head was centered with a crystal crown holding it as such. She had the same number of Strings as Winter, though only the string holding the head was cut.

"These are the plebeians that thought they could steal your crown?" The cognitive Weiss asked, "Father, may I keep a few of them as pets? To show them their place in the world?"

"Like hell that will happen." Mona snapped drawing his sword.

"Perhaps Weiss." Shadow Jacques said, "However first I must teach them to respect their king!"

With that, Shadow Jacques leapt of the balcony and landed smoothly on the Throne.

As he landed his body then turned into a black sludge before exploding violently, causing the Thieves to cover their eyes.

[P5 Blooming Villain]

When the Phantom Thieves looked again, Shadow Jacques had taken a different form.

First off, he and his throne were now massive, his body was covered in light blue robes and white armor under it, his head hidden by a light blue helmet that covered his face with a crown-like design on top of it, two empty eye slits were the only holes in it. In one of his hands there was a tall scepter that was tipped by a Snowflake that was inserted in four different angles to make it more of a spiked club. His Throne was a shining silver, however what it sat upon was rather horrifying.

Crushed beneath the throne were several faceless figure, all of which had exposed animal parts. The Cognitive Faunus all seemed to be struggling to act as the legs of the chair, some were even being crushed under one of his armored boots as he sat cross legged and leaning back.

"Now then." Shadow Jacques declared, "It's time you learned your place, under my heel."

"We're not gonna just let you walk all over us." Skull shouted stepping forward, "Are we Joker?"

"We're not going to let others dictate how we will live." Joker said pulling out his Pistol, "We've already had enough of that."

With that Joker fired off three shots at the Shadow, who swung his scepter at an impressive speed to block the bullets.

"Let's go Captain!" Skull shouted ripping off his mask and leaping. Skull landed at the foot of his Persona and sailed toward the Shadow before jumping off as Captain Kidd fired a Ziodyne at Shadow Jacques. However he blocked the bolt of lightning and Skull's bat with his scepter, but forming a crack on it.

"He's blocking everything with that Scepter." Oracle noted, "But it can't last forever, focus on hitting him hard and fast."

"Eligor!" Joker shouted tearing off his mask, "Sukunda!"

The knight-esque Persona raised his spear, before green energy sunk off of Shadow Jacques, weakening his mobility.

"Even better idea." Queen said, "He'll move slower now so he's less likely to block the attack."

"Damn pests!" Shadow Jacques growled lifting his scepter before slamming it down at Queen, who backflipped out of range.

"Johanna!" Queen shouted tearing her mask off, landing on her Persona before revving it and driving up the scepter, "Vajra Blast!"

Johanna jumped off the scepter before slamming into Shadow Jacques with a blast of force that further cracked his scepter and caused the Shadow's head to jerk back.

"Damn you!" Shadow Jacques snarled before swatting away the airborne Queen with the back of his hand and rose his Scepter.

This caused mid-sized ice crystals to form around the Phantom Thieves before shattering.

"Ahh!" Panther shouted as the ice hurt her more than the others due to Carmen's weakness to ice.

"Panther!" Mona shouted running over to his friend before helping her back up, "Heal us up Zorro!" He then shouted tearing off his mask.

While Mona's Persona was healing the group Noir pulled her Grenade Launcher out and took aim at Shadow Jacques and fired.

"Gwah!" Shadow Jacques grunted as his Scepter exploded, "You're rather persistent aren't you? Whitely!"

At Shadow Jacques's shout a new figure ran into the room from an apparent side entrance, in all honesty he looked like a younger Jacques, except for the fact he was more of a prince in his attire, he was a puppet like the others, but unlike the others all his strings were taut.

"Yes Father?" The Cognitive Whitley asked.

"I need to be rearmed." Shadow Jacques said.

"As you wish father." The Cognitive Whitley said before running out of the room.

"We need to deal as much damage as we can before he's re-armed." Fox called out as he slashed at the Shadow's leg before tearing his mask off, "Goemon, Brave Blade!"

As Goemon appeared behind Fox, several golden glowing blades appeared around Shadow Jacques, spinning around and around him for a moment before they all pointed at him and impaled him.

"Gha-ha!" Shadow Jacques gasped as he lurched forward on his throne.

"Father!" The Cognitive Weiss called out, just before she waved her fan, causing a green light to form around the Shadow.

"He's just been completely healed!" Oracle shouted.

"Ahhh, I hate it when Shadow's get healed." Skull shouted.

"Bring the weapon to Father!" The Cognitive Whitley ordered as the door opened to show several Faunus all chained to each other holding a scepter identical to the one that was shattered.

"Excellent." Shadow Jacques said grabbing the staff from the Cognitive Faunus, not waiting for them to let go and in turn were sent flying into the walls as he swing the scepter, destroying them on impact.

"The Cognitive Whitley isn't much of a problem." Mona said pulling out his Slingshot, "But we need to take care of the Cognitive Weiss."

With that Mona let the pellet fly, aimed at the Cognitive Weiss's head, but the pellet was knocked aside as Shadow Jacques blocked the shot with his staff.

"You're fighting me, not my children!" Shadow Jacques snarled, swinging his staff at the Phantom Thieves once again, only for them to quickly dodge it.

"Queen." Joker said as the thieves regrouped, "We'll keep his attention on us, you sneak around and take out the Cognition."

"Got it." Queen said jumping back and running to the edge of the room.

"Arsene!" Joker shouted tearing off his mask.

Arsene appeared and flew toward the Shadow Jacques, aiming for his scepter and clawing at it with Cleave, damaging the staff a margin.

"Carmen!" Panther Shouted tearing off her mask and pulled out her SMG.

Carmen appeared behind Panther and launched a large orb of fire as Panther began to fire, however in an impressive display Shadow Jacques began to spin his scepter in front of him, blocking the fire and the bullet's, though damaging the scepter a bit more.

"Skull!" Noir called out running next to Skull toward Shadow Jacques.

"Let's go!" Skull shouted as he jumped onto Noir's axe, who swung it at Shadow Jaques, launching Skull at it.

Skull pulled out his shotgun in mid air and began to unload it at the Shadow, who blocked all the bullets and the follow up melee attack from his bat.

This however shattered his Scepter.

"Dammit. Whitley!" Shadow Jacques shouted.

"Yes father." The Cognitive Whitley said, just before a female scream filled the air.

Everyone turned to see Queen had climbed up to the balcony and now had her Revolver aimed at The Cognitive Weiss's face, not much further than a foot from her. "Begone!" Queen shouted firing the Revolver.

The Cognitive Weiss was launched back several feet from the shot and tumbled off the balcony, bursting into black smoke when she landed.

"NO!" Shadow Jacques shouted, getting up from his throne and reaching from where the Cognitive Weiss landed.

It was then the Cognitive Faunus under the throne felt a lack of weight, and with that they easily lifted the throne and threw it off them, causing the throne to shatter like glass. Now no longer quite literally being crushed under the weight, the Cognitive Faunus got up and ran for the side entrance, catching the Cognitive Whitley in their chains and dragging him off with them.

"Looks like taking out the Cognitive Weiss did more than we thought it would." Oracle noted as Shadow Jacques turned back to the Phantom Thieves before falling to his hands and knees.

"All out attack!" Joker shouted as the group initiated the relentless attack.

However even afterwards the Cognitive Jacques was still up, now only resting on one knee.

"Damn you..." Shadow Jacques snarled, "I cannot let up on these Faunus or they'll ruin me! They'll destroy everything I have!"

"Shut up dammit." Skull snapped "The only reason the Faunus are gonna do that to you is because you did it to them!"

"They're nothing but animals! Beasts! Monsters!" Shadow Jacques shouted.

"No." Joker said pulling out his pistol, "The only monster here."

Joker then took aim at the Shadow Jacques, aiming for the Shadow's heart.

"Is you!"

With that Joker fired his pistol, the bullet slamming into Shadow Jacques's chest and causing him to roar in pain as he fell forward in a mass of black smoke.

[OST: Persona 5: Regret]

As the smoke dissipated, Joker walked over to where the Cognitive Weiss was destroyed and picked up the crown.

"Why?" Shadow Jacques asked as the smoke finally vanished to show him in his more human sized and shaped form, "Those Faunus, they'll be the extinction of humanity, why are you going so far to protect them?"

"I won't say you're wrong about extinction." Joker said walking up to the Shadow, "After all, when the child of a human and Faunus results in a Faunus, the fear of extinction through evolution becomes all too real."

"Then why?" Shadow Jacques asked, "What good will helping the Faunus if they'll be the cause of humanities end?"

"Because they are just like us." Joker said, "Trying their best to survive in a world were natural selection is forcing us to evolve to protect what we hold dear."

"What we hold dear..." Shadow Jacques mused.

"Jacques." Joker said, causing the Shadow to look him in the eyes, "Stop using the Faunus as cheap labor, stop treating your family as puppets. Treat them all like you would treat any friend, any true friend you had before you became a Schnee."

The Shadow nodded as he slowly stood up, "You're right." Shadow Jacques said, "I thought I was protecting my family, but now I can see all I've done was bring them harm. I will go back to my real self, I have a lot of things to do and not much time left to do it."

With that Shadow Jacques faded away in light.

"Let's get going as well." Joker said.

[OST End]

[Akira's apartment]

"I can't believe the crowd was still there." Morgana said as everyone sat around the kitchen table, save for the fact that Morgana was on the kitchen table.

"We should probably not sell the Treasure for a while though." Makoto said, "Unlike our other heists, I get the feeling this one will cause an uproar when we try to sell it."

"Yeah." Ryuji said, "Heck I'd not even risk looking for a price on it until this all blows over." Ryuji then looked over to Akira, "Say, what is the Treasure anyway?"

"This." Akira said holding out a small golden ring, with several clear Dust crystals wrapping around the edge.

"Is that...a wedding ring?" Haru asked tilting her head.

"I would make sense really." Ann said, "I mean when he married Mrs. Schnee he practically became a king, running the SDC and all."

The group mulled it over for a bit before Yusuke spoke up. "We better call it a night." Yusuke said before yawning a bit. "I'm rather tired."

"You barely did anything in that fight." Ryuji deadpanned, "Makoto and Ann were the ones that took the heavy damage."

"He's got you there." Akira said, earning a few chuckles from the group, even Yusuke who conceded the point.

 **[[]]**

 **Good freaking LORD that took ages to write.**

 **I'd like to thank Swift56 and Timeless Dreamer Neo for offering to Beta this chapter for me, thanks again guys.**

 **Anyway I'll leave you commenters to do your think while I get some sleep, I've been staying up way too late lately.**


	12. Chapter 11

**Hello everyone, it's time for more Phantom Thieves.**

 **Marie: Good time this week to be a fan of them, a lot of P5 stories seem to be updating lately... at least the one's we're watching.**

 **PC: And it's gotten me filled with the urge to write for P5, though how long this will take to come out surely won't be as long as the previous chapter.**

 **Anyway, Enjoy.**

 **[[]]**

[Jacques Schnee's office: Day after the heist]

Jacques sat at his desk, the door to his office locked and he had asked Klein to inform the entire household he did not wish to be disturbed unless he called for assistance.

Jacques knew what he had to do in just a few days, and he was preparing for the fallout.

His previous speech was shredded and thrown in the fireplace the night before when no one was looking, his new speech was written and triple checked, and the Faunus who worked at the SDC had suddenly gotten several promotions based on how long and hard they've been working.

The next thing on his to do list was checking up on something, thus he had called his daughter Winter to his office.

He looked up to see Winter enter the room, said Atlesian Specialist was surprised to see the melancholic look on his face.

"Father, are you alright?" Winter asked, somewhat concerned for this new expression on her father's face.

"Winter." Jacques croaked, his voice seemed a little hoarse, as if he had been crying for several hours, "Remind me, if something were to happen to me, you would be able to hold control of the SDC until Weiss was ready to inherit the company correct?"

Winter blinked at this, "Y-Yes." Winter said, "However as I am still apart of the military I am still obligated to whatever mission General Ironwood sends me out on and-"

"And the SDC will hold out on all unnecessary paperwork until you have available time to deal with it." Jacques croaked.

"Father..." Winter asked walking up to Jacques, "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm alright Winter." Jacques croaked, "I suppose I've come to realize that there are some people out there that are brave enough to come face to face with me. If some thieves have the courage to do so, when can I expect an assassin with the same courage to show themselves."

Winter looked into her father's eye's worryingly, "Father, whoever these Phantom Thieves are, I can assure you no-one managed to break into the mansion yesterday." Winter assured.

"Thank you Winter." Jacques said, "Can you call Weiss over here for me?"

Winter nodded slowly as she left the room.

A few minutes later Weiss walked confidently into her father's office, "You wanted me Father?" Weiss asked.

"Weiss." Jacques said looking at his daughter in her eyes, "You told me that next year you wanted to join Beacon Academy in Vale for Huntress Training, correct?"

"Yes Father." Weiss said curtly as her Father stood up.

"Weiss, when you told me that I had planned to test you." Jacques said holding out his scroll, showing the image of a massive suit of armor, armed with a sword, "That test was for you to fight the Arma Gigas."

"I've never heard of it before." Weiss said looking at the image.

"That's because the Arma Gigas is something of an artificial Grimm created by the SDC by shoving several Possession-Type Grimm inside of it." Jacques said, "I had wanted you to fight it under the thought that you would never be able to beat it."

Weiss looked wide eyed at her father, amazed he would go to such lengths to stamp down on her rebelliousness.

"However now..." Jacques said, "You don't have to fight it if you don't want to. But if you do fight it, and defeat it, it's power will undoubtedly helpful once you've mastered you're Summoning Glyphs."

Weiss thought about it for a moment, "I want to fight it father." Weiss said.

Jacques nodded, "Very well Weiss." Jacques said, "However I want you to know that it is very durable, and extremely fast and agile for its size, we've noticed it uses its momentum extensively in it's fighting style and doesn't seem to be fazed in the weight of it's weapon when it chooses to use it single handedly. However we've also noticed it's unarmed combat is pitiful."

Weiss nodded at this. If she wanted to defeat the Arma Gigas she'll need to disarm it, and from what her father said, the best way would be to cut off it's arm when it's using it's weapon single handedly.

"I'm sure I can handle it father." Weiss said confidently, only to gasp as he father gripped her shoulder.

"Weiss, do not get overconfident against the Arma Gigas." Jacques warned, "Now if you want to fight it, go find Winter and let her know, and tell her I want her to be there as well in case anything goes wrong understood."

Weiss blinked in surprise as she could only nod.

"Good." Jacques said, "Now off you go, princess."

Weiss's body moved out of the room while her mind was frozen like a block of ice.

[July 15th- Day of the Speech]

[Phantom Thieves apartment]

"Time for the confession." Ryuji said grinning as he leaned back on the couch.

"Here's hoping nothing went wrong." Ann said.

"It only happened once Ann." Futaba said, "And that was because of Akechi..."

The room went silent at the mention of the Detective, the group was still undecided on how they should feel about him. On one hand, he murdered Futaba's mother and Haru's father... along with countless others.

On the other hand, he was a bastard son of Shido and perhaps could have had a better future if his family was more together, as well as the fact he sacrificed himself to help the Phantom Thieves steal Shido's heart. All in all the group decided that while they may not have, and maybe never will, fully forgive him, they would show respect for their deceased former teammate.

"It's starting." Yusuke said, pulling their attention back to the feed.

[Patch- Rose-Branwen-Xiao Long house]

"Schnee's announcement is today." Qrow said as the family sat on the couch, Zwei, the family Corgi, sat on Ruby's lap.

"Think those Phantom Thieves of Heart were bluffing?" Ruby asked.

"No idea." Tai said, "But if Jacques actually confesses his sins, then you're gonna have to get used to Drunk Qrow around the house."

"So like him showing up on the weekends, except throughout the day." Yang teased.

"Well you're not wrong." Qrow said with an amused chuckle.

[Kou Kunana- Belladonna residence]

"The speech is today." Sienna Khan said as she sat next to Kali in front of the TV.

"I've been wondering what effect this could have of the White Fang." Ghira mused.

"How so?" Kali asked.

"It's actually very simple." Sienna said, "If Jacques were to confess then a large portion of the White Fang, which is of those who oppose Jacques, would suddenly not know what to as many joined simply to get back at Jacques. If he's arrested then they will either cry for blood or leave."

"We'll see soon." Kali said as she gave Sienna and Ghira cups of tea.

[Beacon: Ozpin's office]

Glynda was snapping her fingers under Ozpin's nose, trying to get his attention. However it was not working as the Headmaster of Beacon had all of his attention on the screen in front of him, waiting for Jacques's speech.

Glynda was actually quite worried, wondering if he was sick as he hadn't had a single cup of coffee today considering how he was almost never without some.

Though at the same time, she was rather hoping Jacques would start the speech with a confession.

[White Fang Encampment]

"When is Jacques's speech scheduled to start?" Adam asked Blake.

"Supposedly in a few minutes." Blake said, "Do you really think these Phantom Thieves managed it?"

"I wouldn't bet on it." Adam scoffed, "Jacques hasn't cracked under us for years. What's some upstart group going to be able to do in just a few days?"

"I hope they manage it." Blake mused, "If that man were to be locked up Remnant would be a far better place."

[Atlas- Main Street]

Salem (In her disguise) was standing next to Cinder, at the back of the crowd that had gathered to see Jacques's speech personally.

"Are you certain they managed to succeed?" Cinder asked Salem.

"Cinder." Salem said calmly, "I understand your doubt, but from what I've seen is that these Phantom Thieves are very well practiced in doing this. I doubt they would make a promise they couldn't hold up."

Salem's smirk widened when Jacques walked onto the stage and stepped up to the mic.

[On stage]

Jacques cleared his throat before taking of deep breath. "People of Remnant." Jacques said, "I've come here today to make an... announcement. What the Phantom Thieves accused me of a few days ago... Is all true."

[OST Persona 5: Regret]

Murmurs spread throughout the crowd as Jacques paused.

Weiss gasped as she covered her mouth, she knew something was different about her father when he warned her about the Arma Gigas, advice she had taken to heart and managed to avoid any permanent injury, her Aura wasn't even broken, though she did feel how strong the Grimm was.

"When I said that I paid the Faunus that worked at the SDC they same as anyone else I was only telling a sliver of the truth." Jacques continued, "The Faunus that worked at the SDC were only being paid minimum wage, no matter how hard they work nor how long they worked."

The murmur's grew.

"Those Faunus have now been paid properly for their work, and the families of those who loved ones perished in my mining facilities have now been properly compensated for their losses, with interest for how long it has been since I simply sent them an emotionless message that had informed them of the passing of their loved ones."

"Furthermore." Jacques continued, "I have placed orders for an upgrade in mining and safety equipment for those who continue to work in the mines, and while I cannot prevent them from caving in, I can prevent the Faunus working there from dying of inhaling too much Dust."

"I would also like to apologize to my family." Jacques said, causing Winter, Whitley, and Weiss to blink and turn to face Jacques once again. "For years now I haven't treated them as my family. When Winter told me she was joining the Atlesian army, I had myself convinced she had done so to get the military under my control, and if she hadn't then I would have found a way to get it under my control. As for my daughter and son, Weiss and Whitley, I had cracked down on them and had attempted to mold themselves into near identical versions of myself."

"Father..." Weiss whispered looking at her father.

"That is why, aside from the policies I have stated before, I hereby announce that I am stepping down as CEO of the SDC." Jacques said.

This caused the murmurs to turn into dead silence, before Jacques continued.

"I ask that my eldest daughter, Winter Schnee, take control of the SDC until the Heiress, Weiss Schnee, is ready to inherit control of the company." Jacques said, before looking at the camera with tears. "General Ironwood, please, arrest me."

The crowd's silence turned suddenly into a massive, indecipherable uproar as Jacques stepped away from the mic and walked to General Ironwood and held out his arms, awaiting his handcuffs.

[Patch- Rose-Branwen-Xiao Long house]

Ruby, Yang, Qrow and Tai were stunned into silence.

Ruby, who had a large chocolate chip cookie in her hand, was stunned to the point she barely notice her cookie slip from her hand and land on Zwei's head. The Corgi shaking his head before hopping off of Ruby's lap.

Tai simply held out his hand, holding out Qrow's flask back to the Branwen.

Qrow absent mindedly took the flask and took a sip from it before holding it back out to Tai, who took it and took a sip from it as well before going even wider-eye and spat out the alcoholic beverage.

"Holy shit." Yang muttered, Tai still too stunned to comment on her language.

[Kou Kunana- Belladonna residence]

Sienna's teacup slipped from her hands as Jacques finished his speech. "I... I can't believe it." Sienna breathed, "The man the White Fang have been trying to ruin under my orders just confessed his crimes and is letting himself be arrested."

"Incredible..." Ghira said, "These Phantom Thieves actually managed to do exactly what they promised." Ghira gently put his teacup down before it slipped from his hands.

"You might want to watch out Sienna." Kali noted, "There's a chance they might come after you."

Sienna gulped at the thought of that, "I'll be sure to keep an ear out." Sienna said, 'I may just have to relent and follow with Ghira's plans for the White Fang if these Phantom Thieves of Heart keep this up.' Sienna thought, 'Perhaps I should send out a new order to the White Fang cells to pass along any and all information regarding these Thieves.'

[Beacon: Ozpin's office]

"Glynda." Ozpin said after a minute of silence.

"Y-Yes professor?" Glynda stammered returning to the real world, after being stunned silent by Jacques's confession.

"Jacques just made a complete one hundred eighty degree shift in his personality." Ozpin stated, "Am I correct?"

"Yes sir." Glynda said, "What are we going to do? If these Phantom Thieves can really alter someone's emotions to make them confess then..."

"We had best hope they keep their activities limited to only the criminals." Ozpin said, before a thought crossed his mind. "Although I do wonder if they could... Steal Salem's heart."

"Ozpin I'm not even sure if Salem has a heart." Glynda deadpanned despite her shock.

[White Fang Encampment]

"It's got to be a hoax." Adam growled closing his Scroll, "We've spent years trying to get rid of Jacques, and suddenly these Phantom Thieves show up and in less than two weeks they have that human asking to be arrested. Literally!"

Blake had stepped back from Adam, she was growing more worried about him as he had begun to act far more spiteful toward humans than most of the other members.

'It hasn't gone too far yet.' Blake thought, hoping desperately the boy she grew up with was still in there, 'But if he's too deep in his anger... Could these Phantom Thieves save him from himself?'

[Atlas- Main Street]

"I-impossible." Cinder stuttered, "How did they manipulate him like that?"

Salem however looked on in silence, deep in thought, 'The power to manipulate someone to do what they want...' Salem thought as a wicked grin grew on her face, 'I must find these Phantom Thieves and get them onto my side.'

"Cinder." Salem said aloud.

"Yes Mistress?" Cinder asked.

"Once you've finished the first job I've given you, I want you to recruit the Phantom Thieves." Salem said, "After all, I doubt they would be able to resist the powers of a Maiden."

"But..." Cinder said, "I don't know what they look like."

Salem nodded at this logic, after all even she knew it was hard to find someone when you didn't know what they looked like, "I may not know their identities, but I know what they look like in their... Uniforms."

[Ironwoods limo]

"Life time house arrest?" Weiss asked completely baffled at Ironwoods sentence.

"That is correct Miss Schnee." Ironwood said, "If I were to send Jacques to even the highest security Atlesian Prison, he is beyond likely to be killed by the inmates. Therefore, as I do owe Jacques a favor, I've pulled some strings so that his imprisonment sentence is take place in his mansion."

"But why at the mansion?" Whitley asked, "You could have Father sent to a remote location that only you know about, but you chose to keep him here."

"Sometimes son." Jacques said looking at the cuffs on his wrists, "The best hiding place is right under your nose."

"Furthermore, I believe Jacques is far overdue in being an

parent." Ironwood continued, "This is going to be his only chance at it, and with Weiss heading to Beacon next year he doesn't have too much time to do so."

While this conversation was going on, Winter was staring out the window with a glare on her face so powerful even a Grimm would back off in sight of it. 'These people managed to sneak past me, while I was on guard, break into my families house and stole Oum knows what.' Winter thought, 'I know father had it coming, but these Thieves announced their plan to strike and I still failed.'

"Specialist Schnee?/Winter?/Sister?" Ironwood, Jacques, Weiss, and Whitley asked in synch.

"Father, I swear I will catch these Phantom Thieves." Winter said sternly, "They made it past me while I was on my best guard. I feel scorned at this and I will not let it simply rest."

"Winter." Ironwood said, "I understand you feel this was a black mark on your service record, and I will allow you to pursue the Phantom Thieves, however if I feel the pursuit is too much for you, or it's going to your head I am calling you off the mission understood."

"Yes sir." Winter said flatly, as she continued to look out the window, 'They are still in Atlas, they couldn't have left.'

"I can have the transportation out of Atlas closed down." Ironwood said, "But only a few months at most. Any more and it would cause the other kingdoms to worry about us."

"I understand." Winter said.

"I wouldn't be too surprised if that Akira fellow was one of them." Weiss said, "That Ryuji fellow as well."

This caught Ironwoods attention, "And why do you say that Miss Schnee?"

"When Akira was with Yusuke painting my portrait I noticed he was reading a book that had the plot following a thief, he could easily have learn tricks from that book," Weiss said, "Plus that Ryuji fellow was so brutish I wouldn't be surprised if he was a thief as well."

"Weiss." Winter sighed looking at her sister, "I understand that you are upset about this as well, but you can just point at someone with evidence as little as that. Even I like to read novels following a criminal every so often, and clashing heads with Ryuji simply because you have rivaling personalities is no way to base your judgement."

Weiss sighed, "Maybe so... Maybe some sleep will clear my head."

 **[[]]**

 **There's the chapter folks... now it's late and I'm tired so... goodnight.**


	13. Chapter 12

**Alright folks, it's time for another chapter of Phantom Thieves of Remnant.**

 **I'll admit it's probably gonna be a while before this one is posted (From me starting to write it), mainly because while I do know what I want done in this chapter, it's the how to do it that is slowing me right now.**

 **Anyway I hope you all enjoy this chapter like the rest and I'll see you all at the end.**

 **[[]]**

[Schnee Family Mansion: Sitting room]

"I don't believe this!" Weiss shouted, nearly throwing her Scroll down at the sight of what she found on the net.

"Miss Schnee?" Klein asked a little worried.

"Look at this Klein!" Weiss snapped holding out her scroll to the multi-personality butler.

Klein took the scroll from Weiss and looked at the site it was on, "The Phantom Aficionado Website?" He read aloud looking at the black and red theme of the site.

"Yes!" Weiss shouted turning around and throwing her hands in the air, "SOMEONE decided to create a fansite for these Phantom Thieves, I mean look at the poll on it!"

Klein looked down at the screen and scrolled it down a bit, "Do you Believe in the Phantom Thieves?" He asked, assuming that meant do they trust the Phantom Thieves, the Poll showed that only 22.7 Percent of the people who have visited the site trust the Thieves, Weiss already having hammered NO on it, though it seemed you could change your vote on the poll.

"And they've even got a section where people can leave comments, people are even leaving requests!" Weiss huffed.

Klein looked down once again to see that there were indeed a NUMBER of people making requests.

'Please Steal my mom's heart, she's so overbearing!'

'Can you steal my girlfriend's heart? I'm certain she's cheating on me.'

'Steal my teacher's heart! I swear he gives out so much homework just to torture us!'

"With request's like these I doubt the Phantom Thieves would ever do these requests." Klein mused, "After all no names were given."

"That's the only good thing I've found." Weiss scoffed. Weiss then sighed for a moment as she gently took her Scroll back from Klein, "I'm... going to go take a walk, I'm sorry for yelling at you Klein."

"No worries Miss Schnee." Klein said, "This is all very hard for you."

Weiss then left the room, grabbing one of her heavier coats as she did.

[Schnee Mansion, Study]

Winter had put her hands to her forehead and sighed, thankful that General Ironwood had found suitable, non-racist businessmen to help her replace the corrupt Board of Directors that were employed under her Father.

She was also rather thankful they were willing to help take as much work off of her as they legally could while she was mentally recovering from the incident.

Winter's stress from the day came from the fact that even after sweeping the mansion twice, even double checking the family vault to see if anything was missing, she found nothing.

No signs of forced entry, the locks were working perfectly fine, nothing popped up on the security cameras, none of the guards had fallen asleep nor were knocked out, everyone's stories were verified by everyone they had run into, nothing was missing, heck even the dust was undisturbed until she had walked by it.

"It's like they were never even inside." Winter growled as she looked through the next page of the stack of papers she was going through, she was skimming through the profiles of some of the most effective detectives on Remnant and their Performance Reports and Background Checks.

Sadly, almost all of these Detectives didn't qualify. Some had lied on their reports but were never called out, some had accused the wrong person, and she was pretty sure at least one of them were over exaggerating in their capabilities.

"Is there no Detective in Remnant that actually did what they accomplished?" Winter muttered in exasperation, before tossing aside the profile and went onto the next, which actually caught Winter's attention.

Gregory Ashe: A Dove Faunus hailing from Vale and is often considered a symbol of accomplishment to Faunus. Showed remarkable detective capabilities at a young age, assisting several students in his school during a spree of student to student robberies. Has shown proficiency in sword and handgun usage, has an Aura.

Gregory Ashe had single handedly captured infamous criminal Roman Torchwick and his accomplice Neopolitan (No known last name), Torchwick and his accomplice however did manage to escape custody under police guard- Ashe was not present for this escape and has devoted what time he can in tracking him down once again.

Winter looked at the profile picture of Gregory Ashe, he was a young man with shaggy chin length light brown hair that had dipped down the middle of his head, but arched over his reddish-brown eyes. In this picture he was wearing a tan peacoat with black buttons, slits cut on the sleeves on his forearms to let a row of smooth, white, dove feathers slip out comfortably, he had on a black and white tie over a white collared shirt, black slacks and black dress shoes, as finally having black gloves on his hands to avoid contaminating evidence.

"Hmm..." Winter hummed, looking at his profile. "He's honest, professional, effective..." Winter was glad there was a number at the bottom of the profile, she only hoped he was awake...

[Vale Police Department]

Gregory yawned as he sipped his coffee, before sighing a bit and looking at it, "Somehow it feels like this coffee is still missing something..." Gregory sighed as he sat down in his office.

Right as his Scroll went off, "Figures." Gregory sighed answering his Scroll and holding it to his ear, "Hello?"

"Gregory Ashe?" Winter's voice said, though Gregory didn't know who it was.

"Yes, what do you need?" Gregory said sighing, still half asleep.

"This is Winter Schnee." Winter said.

"Winter, got it..." Gregory said absent mindedly...before the name clicked in his mind and he promptly jumped awake, "Ah... Winter Schnee, I'm sorry, I'm not yet fully awake."

"No need to worry." Winter said reassuringly, "It's early, I was expecting as much."

"I-I see." Gregory said, now fully awake as he put his coffee aside, "What can I do for you this morning?"

"I'd like to request your assistance in the Phantom Thieves case." Winter said.

Gregory opened his mouth to speak, before his head throbbed with startling intensity, "Hnng..." Gregory grunted grabbing his head.

"Mister Ashe?" Winter asked a little worried at the sudden reaction.

"S-sorry." Gregory said after a moment, "Split some coffee on my hand by accident."

"That'll certainly wake you up." Winter muttered, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Gregory said, "My hand will hurt for a while, but my Aura should prevent any permanent damage. Anyway, why did you want me to investigate the Phantom Thieves case, or at least call me to spearhead it?"

"To put it simply, based on profiles you're the most qualified for the job." Winter said flatly.

"I... Can't really argue with that." Gregory mused, "I assume me being a Faunus didn't affect that decision?"

"Perish the thought." Winter said flatly.

"Can we avoid saying the word perish please?" Gregory asked, "As a Faunus, hearing that coming from a Schnee it's... Unsettling."

There was silence from Winter's end for a moment, "I suppose with what all my father has done I can't blame you." Winter admitted, "Can you make your way to Atlas?"

"I wish I could Miss Schnee." Gregory sighed, "But I've still got a case here I'm working on, granted it's slow, but with no evidence to even begin guesswork on who the Phantom Thieves are I'm afraid I can't afford to go all the way to Atlas to start pointing fingers at random directions."

Winter was silent for a moment, "That's fine." She admitted to after a moment, "Even I know you can't expect a great detective to work miracles. I'll call you back when even the slightest bit of evidence is found."

Winter cut the call as soon as she said that.

Gregory pulled his Scroll away from his ear and looked at it in surprise, "Well, I suppose she's rather shaken up about all this." Gregory said putting his Scroll away, "What's wrong with me? When I saw that announcement I blacked out and was bombarded by images and voices, and even just hearing the name gives me a headache..."

Gregory went back to his computer and pulled up the image of the man that had appeared at the end of the announcement, "Who is he?" He mused before another flare of pain flashed through his head, "Joker?" He mused aloud, confused.

 **[[]]**

 **Okay folks, that's the chapter done, truth be told I actually tried to get this out yesterday...**

 **Unfortunately yesterday I had a massively splitting headache that actually manage to put a pain in my eyes somehow.**

 **I managed to figure out the cause of my headache though, easy enough actually, my little sister is one HELL of a headache all on her own. (Maybe once I get a job that stress level will actually go down a smidge- Dear god, a job that's actually less stressful than home life, that's a terrifying thought... Then again I'll be cut free of babysitting her and I'll take what time I can to sleep in or sleep midday.)**

 **Anyway I hope you enjoy this and I'll see you later.**


	14. Chapter 13

**Hello my dear readers... I'm finally back to this story... And you know what the kicker is?**

 **I belayed this on PURPOSE! I'll let my daughter's explain.**

 ***A Tall, large breasted woman in a green and red dress with dragonfly wings on her back sits up- Liefe***

 **Liefe: Okay so... Dad noticed that a good chuck of Comments in his other stories was about asking him to update Phantom Thieves.**

 ***Mila (Check Ruby's mansion for her description) Slithers in***

 **Mila: And dad's a rather spiteful person, so every time he got a PM or a Comment on a non-related story asking if he would continue or update this he delayed it a week.**

 ***A Red haired Holstaur walked in wearing a deep red bathroom- Breya***

 **Breya: And considering it wasn't updated since December, you people have no patience for Dad, haven't you all noticed the number of stories he's writing? He's not always gonna be in the mood to write one specific story you know.**

 **Blaze: However Dad would like to thank Swift56 and Timeless Dreamer Neo for being so patient with him in updating this story.**

 **PC: Now with all the shumlp out of the way enjoy the chapter.**

 **[[]]**

Winter had chosen to step out of her office after ending her call with Detective Ashe. She had already donned a large hooded coat that wasn't fancy looking to connect it to a Schnee's coat and some snow goggles with a scarf. What she usually wore when she didn't want to be noticed.

It was rather effective, as it completely covered Winter's face.

"Weiss?" Winter asked noticing her younger sister at the front door in an identical attire.

"W-Winter." Weiss said moderately shocked, "What are you doing?"

"I was heading out." Winter said pulling out her Scroll, "I was considering calling Akira about joining me."

Weiss tilted her head slightly, "Why?" Weiss asked slightly confused as Winter sent out a text.

"Seeing as you didn't join me, him, and his girlfriend, you probably aren't aware how good a conversationalist he is." Winter said, "Plus he did tell me he help out quite a number of people with their personal problems back in his hometown."

"So you think he can help us?" Weiss asked.

Winter checked her Scroll as it vibrated in her hand, "He said he'd try his best." Winter said, "He said he'd be at a small cafe with Futaba."

"Futaba?" Weiss asked in confusion, the name unfamiliar to her.

"She's like a little sister to him as he told me." Winter explained, "Come Weiss, I've got the address to the place."

[]

The Cafe Akira and Futaba were waiting in was in a more quiet part of Atlas... Specifically in the Faunus district.

"Is Akira nuts?" Weiss said lowly to Winter, "This part of town could be crawling with-"

"Criminals?" Winter interjected, "Yes these parts of Atlas are in desperate times." She said opening the door to the surprisingly nice looking Cafe, smiling softly as she noticed that the back booth's had curtains for privacy, "Thankfully Akira has the forethought to ask for a curtained seat."

The two Schnee sibling walked over and sat down at the booth, Akira pushing over two still warm cups of Coffee to them as Futaba closed the curtain.

"Thank you." Winter said.

"I haven't added anything just yet, I didn't know your tastes." Akira said pushing over a few packets of sugar and a small pitcher of cream.

"How thoughtful." Weiss said somewhat dryly as she took the cream before taking a drink of the coffee, "This is pretty good."

"Sojiro's is better." Futaba said after taking a sip of her's, "No contest."

Winter and Weiss raised an eyebrow, "I think it's pretty good." Winter said.

"Next time you two come over I'll see about making some of Sojiro's coffee." Akira said taking a sip of his, "Now then, the main reason you called me over... How are you two feeling?"

"How do feel!?" Weiss hissed, "I'm livid! Sure I'm glad my father actually acting like a father now, but the cost? If the Schnee name wasn't being dragged through the mud before it's certainly being dragged through now."

"Scorned." Winter said, "I don't know how, but those Thieves stole seemingly nothing and yet Father acts like a different man. I didn't even see any possible point of entry... Not to mention that crowd of rioters make it impossible to pick out one person who might be putting on a mask."

Akira nodded, "The Phantom Thieves certainly are good." He said, "How many years has there been riots and protests against your father?"

"About sixteen years." Weiss said sadly.

"And then the Phantom Thieves show up." Futaba said, "I'm amazed they hacked into the CCT like that though, their hacker must be ancient to have figured out how to do that."

Winter shook her head, "I'm not to sure about the hacker being ancient." Winter said, "Sad to say, but until this event General Ironwood has been lax about the CCT's firewalls."

"Moron." Futaba deadpanned.

"Ahem." Winter said sternly.

"Hey it's only the truth." Futaba said, "I don't know if you've seen any Sci-Fi movies, but a fully mechanized army is not the best thing to do... Too much could go wrong."

Weiss sighed, "Somehow I don't think the general would see it like that." Weiss said taking a sip of her coffee, "I haven't met him too often but his speeches always revolve around taking human life out of the war factor."

"Then you better upgrade your machines." Futaba said, "If the hacker can bust the CCT defenses then your robots are gonna be child's play to him."

"Thankfully General Ironwood has realized this and has double efforts on the systematic security of the upcoming AK-200's." Winter said, "Perhaps with them the Phantom Thieves would be less likely to rob anyone, even if someone asks for their help on that Phan-Site of theirs."

"Phan-Site?" Akira asked raising an eyebrow.

Winter reached into her pocket, "Yes, apparently either one of them or a fan of theirs- Winter started as she held out her Scroll.

It was then Futaba gasped and snatched the Scroll out of Winter's hand, "This is Model 12 Ivory Scroll! How did you get this? These aren't even supposed to be released until the end of the month!" Futaba chattered as she skimmed through the apps Winter had downloaded.

"There are benefits of being an Atlesian Specialist." Winter said chuckling at Futaba's behavior, "But may I have my Scroll back?"

Futaba froze and looked up at Winter before blushing, "Sorry... I really like computers." She admitted.

"Well if you want I could see if General Ironwood can hire you." Winter said, "We could use more programmers at the moment."

"Sorry, but we plan to move out once the Travel restrictions are lifted." Futaba said sadly.

"Why?" Weiss asked sharply, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

"Our friend Morgan." Akira said simply before explaining further, "He's a Faunus who has been here a while. We came to help him pay for his ticket to Vale... And then this happened."

"You're friends with a Faunus?" Weiss asked, sounding incredulous.

"Weiss..." Winter warned with a sigh.

"It's fine." Futaba said, "Morgan's not White Fang though. I mean, he supported what they were going for when..." Futaba pulled out her Scroll and did a fact check, "Ghira was in charge of the White Fang, but when Sienna took over and it started getting violent he opted out of sticking with them."

Winter nodded her head, "And because of the increase of White Fang activity he's grown even more uncomfortable at being in Atlas." She said.

"That's right." Akira said, "Add to the Phantom Thieves' attack and he's now downright afraid of coming outside at the moment."

Weiss finally chose to sit back, "I suppose that's understandable..." She admitted, "If father didn't have so much of an attitude change I'd expect him to just come down here and just point at someone and lay the blame on him or her."

"Speaking of Faunus." Akira said looking toward Winter, "How are your plans coming for the mining situation?"

Winter groaned at the thought, "I've already ordered and sent out the equipment necessary to prolong their survival, but the main issue at the moment is the miners working in the deeper part of the mine where it's less stable." Winter said, "I don't want to have them sent down but the Dust has to be collected."

"Why not use the outdated AK's?" Futaba asked suddenly.

"Pardon?" Winter asked, intrigued by the suggestion.

"With General Ironwood putting most of his Focus into the new models there are probably still a lot of old models still in production right?" Futaba asked, "Well, once Ironwood releases the new model the old models could have new programs installed to assist the mining crew and enter those dangerous areas to help stabilize them."

Winter's frown turned into a smile, "Miss Sakura, I'll see to it that General Ironwood keeps a spot open for you in the R and D team." Winter said standing up, "Weiss, we're going to have to leave. I've got to speak with General Ironwood about this and I don't fully trust you to be safe her by yourself."

"Of course, Winter." Weiss said standing up and leaving with her sister.

A few minutes passed as Akira finished his coffee...and smirked. "Winter fell for the same thing Akechi did." Akira said finally.

"No problem." Futaba said with a chuckle, "No one can ever expect a bug to be planted that fast... I'll have access to Atlas's deepest secrets in no time.

"Until then, let's head back and get the others." Akira said, "It's time to head to Mementos."

 **[[]]**

 **You all are lucky you got a chapter this long.**

 **Mila: Dad, stop being so spiteful already... Well, at least promise you'll try to make the next one a bit longer.**

 **PC: No promises, it'll be up to the readers to be patient and stop nagging me into writing this.**

 **Mila: That's the best I'm gonna get I guess... Well hopefully this will keep you all stated for a while, and if you don't nag dad about updating this he may just update it again very soon.**

 **PC: I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE TELLING ME WHAT TO WRITE!**


	15. Chapter 14

**Hello dear readers, I'm back with more Phantom Thieves... And this time before a whole month has past.**

 **Now I'd like to say that starting tonight, I'm going to go on a mass updating spree in which I plan to update most of my works... Including, but not limited to.**

 **This, Ruby's Mansion, Terror of Death, RGF, Nocturne of Remnant, DAaaG, Devil Hunter, Alpha Gear, RWBY Dragoons, Hat in Paris, Miraculous Thief, and at long last Reading Psychic Hunter over on Ao3.**

 **And for that last one, Swift, I know you've wanted me to update it lately, and I can only do that when you've sent me the chapter to work with bro.**

 **Now before I start this I...** **I'd like to apologize for my actions in the purposeful belayment of the previous chapter.**

 **I just couldn't stand people coming onto my other stories and using guest profiles to ask me if I was ever going to update This story and in truth I was livid at this.**

 **I admit I do get slightly annoyed when my phone vibrates and the Review I get for whatever story is "Good Story" and the like, because sometimes I wonder if that person is being honest, but I can understand that some people are men (And women) Of few words... Like me IRL.**

 **But when that review is for a story completely unrelated to where the Comment is being posted I just see red.**

 **Now then, enjoy this chapter of Phantom Thieves, in which we finally enter Remnant's Mementos... And I hope I don't end up making this one a short chapter.**

 **[[]]**

"Anything on the Phan Site?" Akira asked Morgana as he and Futaba returned to their apartment.

"Yeah, someone here in Atlas realized it would be helpful to actually name the person they want a change of heart for." Morgana said as the rest of the Phantom Thieves were sat at the dining table.

"So... What are we dealing with?" Futaba asked.

"I've been wondering that for a while now actually." Ann said, "He hasn't told us anything yet."

"I was waiting for them to get back so we could make the vote at once." Morgana huffed.

"Speaking of which." Makoto spoke up, "Did you plant the bug on Winter's phone?"

"I feel kind of bad spying on her like that..." Haru muttered with a somewhat guilty frown, "I mean, she probably has a vendetta for us, but unlike Akechi she hasn't really done anything worth us spying on her."

"True." Futaba admitted, "But she's got a high ranking within the Atlas army and thus she's got access to most of their data."

"Can we discuss the target?" Yusuke asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from the rather depressing topic.

"Right, sorry." Morgana said, nodding quickly. "Anyway the target is a man named Eclipse Creed. He's the owner of a small restaurant, though it barely makes it by. According to the requester, aside from the police bribery to turn a blind eye on some things he does, the fact is that the faunus that work in the kitchens are being blackmailed into working there without pay."

"I already hate this guy." Makoto said, her eyes narrowing in anger.

"I think it's safe to say that we will be stealing his heart." Yusuke said, frowning in disgust.

"I think we can call this one unanimous." Akira nodded as he adjusted his glasses, "Go grab your mechashift weapons, we're gonna test them in Mementos today."

"Better bring your normal ones too, just in case they flub." Morgana added.

[Location: Remnant's Mementos]

[Persona 5 Ost: Mementos]

"Whoa..." Skull muttered looking around.

Mementos in Remnant looked far different that what they were used to.

For starters, it was clear it was all above ground, as they could clearly recognize streets and buildings. However, the thing is that the streets were deep red with black trails on them, and the building were all towering into the skies, all of them reaching skyscraper levels, yet not a single window on their deep red bodies, and none of them had doors as far as they could see. Looking at the skies themselves they saw it was blood red with black clouds racing by moment by moments.

"Creepy..." Oracle said looking around.

"Somehow I think I prefer the old Mementos." Panther said, "I mean sure it was deep and made me feel a little cramped, but at least it didn't seem so impossibly huge like this one does."

"Can we not stick around too long?" Queen asked, "I would rather NOT encounter that particular Shadow again."

That got Mona to leap and turn into a van without further complaints, and thus the group began their journey through the new Mementos.

[]

"At least the Shadows are familiar." Noir said looking out the window at the vaguely humanoid shapes the shadows took with no heads, but several faces.

Mona had smashed into several of these shadows already, his power combined with Jokers was so great the Shadows were destroyed in an instant and Joker took the chance to collect several new Personas from these collisions.

"Urgh..." Panther muttered, "Why does this suit feel tighter? Did they grow that much?"

"Whoa!" Oracle shouted as she saw a Shadow zoom over to the window right as Panther said that before it realized how outmatched it was and ran off.

"The scenery is inspiring me." Fox said, "Perhaps I can find a way to work this scene into a painting of my own."

"Iiii've been working on the railroad~" Skull said, "All the live long daaay~"

"He's singing again..." Queen sighed, "Mona don't follow up please, I've heard that song more than enough times in my life."

"Fine." Mona said grumpily, "Really wish I had a radio in here."

"I had forgotten how dull this drive gets when the Shadows are too scared to fight us." Oracle sighed as she shifted in her seat, "Hang on, there's a door over there."

"Where?" Joker asked, "I can't see what you see?"

"Just a bit further straight, it's readings are similar to when we go down a level in the old Mementos." Oracle said.

"So this Mementos must be divided as well." Mona mused, "Come on Joker, lead us to the doorway."

It took a few minutes for Joker to make it to the door. It was a heavy steel door with a small window and bars in a painfully shorter building. Heck, the only way it was reaching the others in height was because the massive chain link fence that was at the top of the building. Interestingly enough though, the building seemed to have windows around the sides, though these were also barred with thick metal bars.

"Well, let's go through." Joker said as he opened the door.

Inside the building was nothing more than a large table with several chairs scattered about, and the whole room looked rather worn and dusty.

"Looks like some kind of safe house..." Oracle muttered, "Except hardly given effort and then abandoned. Thankfully it seems like Shadows won't be able to enter here, so let's take a minute to stretch out legs."

"Agreed." Panther said stretching her arms, "I'm not used to being cramped in Mona's van form for so long anymore."

"We'll take a break before we enter the next..." Joker started before pausing and putting a hand to his chin, "We'll call them Quadrants."

[Patch: Xiao Long residence]

Yang found herself staring at the Phan-Site, not even caring that it was a pun in its name at the moment.

Her hands were hovered over her keyboard as she started at the screen, more specifically the commenting forum, after she had ignored the Poll on the home page as she was unsure of how she felt about the Thieves... But what she was considering at the moment…

"Do I really want to do this?" Yang muttered moving her hands from the keyboard and leaning back in her seat as her arms dropped, "Sure Mom left us for some reason... But is doing this the right thing?"

Yang closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "Mom abandoned Dad and me... Without that I'd never have my baby sister but..." She muttered, "No... Mom needs this, even if she doesn't realize it. Even if she doesn't want this I can't just let this slide."

With that Yang's fingers were fast at work.

[Mementos]

The remaining drive was short, as they came upon the Shadow they were looking for.

A tall blonde man in a business suit.

"That's Eclipse." Mona said, "His Shadow anyway. Ready?"

"Always." Joker said stepping out of the van with the others as he drew his weapon in it's knife form and approached the Shadow.

"What is it?" Eclipses Shadow asked irritably, "I'm busy here."

"Cut the crap you give the Faunus." Joker deadpanned.

"The Fau- Oh I get it, you're another of those damned Faunus Rights activists aren't you?" The Shadow asked, "Please, the law is so lax with the Faunus why shouldn't I just outright use them as Slave labor? You gotta problem with that?"

"Yes actually." Joker said calmly.

"I see, in that case I'll just get rid of you and sweep it to the side." Eclipses Shadow said before it was coated in darkness, which then exploded into the form of a little red man with wings and horns... And a rather... peculiar growth coming from it's crotch, an Incubus's form.

"This shouldn't be a problem." Queen said having her weapon take it's revolver form and fired at the Shadow.

"Gwaha!" The Shadow cried out as it fell to the ground.

"All out attack." Joker ordered.

The poor Shadow didn't stand a chance at it burst back into the form of the man.

"H-how powerful are you people?" Shadow Eclipse asked as he scrambled back, "W-What do you want from me?"

"I want you to apologies to those you've been blackmailing." Joker said, "And for you to let them go."

"I-is that all?" The Shadow asked, "I- I suppose I have been acting like Jacques in that regard... Very well, I'll let them go."

With that, the Shadow vanished into light and let behind a glowing orb that Joker snatched out of the air.

"Job's done... A bit easier than I expected. too." Joker said.

"Well... We don't have a way to calculate the strength of Shadows in the area at the moment." Queen said, "I suppose this was a case of us finding some Shadow that wasn't strong... Or this gun is a lot stronger than it looks."

"We should fight a few other Shadows in the area before leaving." Joker said, "Just to test the weapons."

[Apartment]

[OST End]

"Oh yes..." Futaba cackled as she looked at her Scroll, while Akira scanned through the Phan-site, listing names that had been requested on the site after checking to see if they were in Mementos.

"What's up?" Morgana asked hopping up next to Futaba.

"I've got access to Atlas's secrets." Futaba cackled gleefully.

"I don't think she's gonna go to bed tonight." Ryuji muttered.

Akira however paused on the Phan-Site, "Futaba... Can you trace whoever posted this request?" Akira asked.

"Huh? Yeah, it'd take a while but I could, why?" Futaba asked looking over at Akira.

"Because she's asked for her mother by name... After she abandoned her." Akira said, "And the Shadow of Raven Branwen is not in Mementos."

 **[[]]**

 **There you are folks, the first chapter in the spree, though the only one for tonight because my ass hurts at the moment... This chair I'm using sucks.**

 **And sorry if the fight scene was crap, but to be honest I really just couldn't find a way to write that scene without it turning into a complete, dragged out Smackdown, so I chose to make it a short smackdown that didn't have a bunch of useless dialogue of them attacking it without it being able to attack back.**

 **Anyway see you all tomorrow.**


	16. Chapter 15

**Okay folks, before I begin this chapter I... Kinda have something I want to spread as a Theory.**

 **You guys probably don't know this, but I'm actually a fan of Kingdom Hearts, and thus am hyped for KH3... However me and my buddy Swift were in a real panic about what had happened to Aqua in one of the Kingdom Heart's trailers... Her turning dark and gaining golden eyes.**

 **Not wanting to believe Aqua had fallen slave to Xehanort we began counting confirmed Xehanorts from the trailers, getting ourselves an nice 10, with three empty spaces and 4 possibilities of who would fill them, one of which is Xehanort holding the Idiot Ball and keeping slot 13 open for Sora.**

 **And then Swift mentioned Terra-Nort.**

 **At that moment things just slotted together in my brain- Xehanort had already pulled back three different versions of himself from time, if he were to pull back Terra-Nort, and actually, Young Xehanort is applicable for this too.**

 **Well, time travel is messy stuff, if Terra-nort (Or Young Xehanort) were to be pulled from the past, and defeated/destroyed in the future... The entire KH series could be retconned, sure if Terra-Nort is erased then BBS will still happen, but there's the fact that the creator said that KH3 would, 'Have an ending fans may find hard to swallow', and I dunno about you, but if the whole series were to have it's history wiped...**

 **Well, at most KH1 could still happen with minimal change due to how little Ansem/Xehanort actually did in it, but otherwise... We'd have a hard to swallow ending on our hands.**

 **It's either this, where Sora and Riku might have never been enemies, or the BBS trio dying... In all honesty both possibilities scare me.**

 **Spread the word people, please, I really want to hear everyone's opinion or take on this.**

 **Now sorry for the long belayment of this story, let this chapter begin.**

 **[[]]**

[Phantom Thieves Apartment]

"Any reason why we aren't doing anything about Raven at the moment?" Ryuji asked as Futaba and Akira were going over a section of data stolen from Winter's Phone.

"We don't know enough about her." Akira said looking up, "If her Shadow was in Mementos there wouldn't be a problem, but she has a Palace. As it is now, all we know is her name and that's it. We've got no idea what is her location or what her distortion is."

"So in short we know nothing so we can't help the person who sent us the request." Ryuji sighed, "So what are you two doing then?"

Futaba increased the size of her screen, "I love that…" she chuckled at the feature, before turning to her friends. "Come here. There's something you'll want to see."

The Phantom Thieves gather around the screen Futaba had maximized.

 _[Project P.E.N.N.Y]_

 _[This Project, Spearheaded by Doctor Polendina, is the latest in Android technology. P.E.N.N.Y is a very special android that, when activated, has the unique property of generating an Aura like that of a human. It is even capable of mimicking human emotions, allowing it to blend into human society. General Ironwood has demanded the project be treated like a human being, however the Atlas Council has chosen to have P.E.N.N.Y. be the base model for a new line of Android that will be sent out to blend into human and faunus society to complete missions and to eliminate Grimm with less infraction toward human life. P.E.N.N.Y will be sent to Vale for the next Vytal Festival for field testing, and should P.E.N.N.Y successfully proceed through Vale without being outed as a machine and perform well in the Vytal Festival tournament then machines of similar construction will begin development after the plans are successfully claimed from Dr. Polendina.]_

"What!?" Morgana cried out in his cat form, "These people have found a way to mimic a soul?"

"Not mimic..." Makoto said, "They've either replicated it or... Transplanted it."

That sent a shudder down everyone's spine.

"So they've got human life figured out enough to put a soul in a machine and they're just going to..." Ann start taking a breath before she let her anger get too far ahead, "They're just going to treat them like other machines?"

"We can't just let this happen!" Haru said angrily, memories of her father's Palace coming to mind, "But what should we do?"

"Well..." Futaba said as her glasses were no longer see through from a glare of light, "It would be rather difficult to replicate P.E.N.N.Y if the blueprints were stolen... Along with P.E.N.N.Y themself."

"We stop this from happening by stealing the master plan then." Yusuke said putting a hand to his chin, "Do you have a plan?"

Akira pushed his glasses up, "Well, we're robbing a real place, so things will have to be slightly different from our usual routine."

"He's right." Morgana said, "This isn't Mementos or a Palace, we can't do a little bit every day, it's got to be one big job done in a single day."

"I've got a plan though." Akira said, "We'll talk on the road though."

[Atlas Roads, Midnight]

"So the plan?" Skull asked as Joker drove Mona the van across the snow.

"First off, Oracle will hack into their systems when we arrive." Joker said, "We'll use a window at the least, preferably a rooftop window, but in the event we can't find anything like that, the front door is a last resort."

"Thankfully Winter's Scroll was loaded with all the information I need." Oracle said, "Including maps, passwords, control of the cameras, heck I can even control the heating system."

"So... After we steal P.E.N.N.Y what's our escape plan?" Panther asked, as that was a VERY important step. Unlike their normal variety of treasures, they weren't going to just disappear after they get them out.

"Considering we'll effectively be lugging a human on out shoulders like a sack of potatoes." Mona said, "We may have to break through the nearest window or door to escape."

"We'll also have to be fast." Joker said, "Once Oracle shuts down their security systems it won't be long before everyone is on high alert. When that happens, we'll have a small window of time before we end up having to fight an army, and I don't think any of us want to tip our hands too soon."

"So basically treat this like we're stealing a Treasure from a Palace." Skull said with a nod.

"Except we're fighting humans instead of Shadows." Queen noted with a touch of apprehension. This WAS the first time they were going to be fighting real humans who weren't part of some evil organization like Akechi was.

"In which case we shall have to avoid causing permanent harm to the soldier and scientists staffed there." Noir reminded, earning a nod from the rest of the group.

"And once we've arrived, Oracle will disconnect P.E.N.N.Y from any tracking systems as well as transferring any files regarding her off their systems and deleting the originals." Joker said, "And on the road Oracle will work on reprogramming P.E.N.N.Y to rid her of anything... Malicious. Any questions or objections?"

There were none.

"Alright then, it's showtime," Joker smirked.

[Atlas Military Science Facility]

The Phantom Thieves were rather surprised, sure there were no windows in the fully above ground facility, but there was one big infiltration route to the facility.

The Ventilation system.

"Ready?" Oracle asked as several holographic screens were visible in front of her to which the other Phantom Thieves nodded. "Alright, I'm shutting down all systems... Now." At that last word Oracle pressed a symbol on her screen and sound from within the ventilation stopped.

"Go." Joker said as he and Skull tore off the vent and crawled in, "Men first," he said...for obvious reasons.

[Persona 5 OST: Sweatshop]

The vent's held a grate to an open hallways soon enough, a single guard standing right below it, a single elbow from Joker caused the grate to fall off and slam into the guards head with enough force to knock him out... And the 8 Thieves jumping down onto him didn't help him stay conscious.

"And here I thought guards standing right under grates was just in cartoons and movies," Skull couldn't help but chuckle.

"Where to Oracle?" Joker asked.

"Down the hall, first turn on the right." Oracle replied, causing Joker to lead the way down the path.

As they turned the corner they encounter an AK-130. It didn't get a chance to speak up before Joker thrust Lupin forward, stabbing it in a critical circuit and disabling the machine in a heartbeat.

They continued down the hallways at a brisk pace, neither going too fast that they'd miss any possible security or traps, nor too slow that they'd take longer than necessary. Along the way, they were met with a number of guards be they human or machine, understandable as this WAS a military facility. The guards may have been stationed at key points that would allow them to easily alert others or contact help in the event of an intruder, however it was clear the guards weren't really prepared for someone like them sneaking in as with some well placed ambushes and shots/stabs, the guards were knocked out and the machines disabled in short order. With each taken care of, the Phantom Thieves continued on without losing much of their pace.

Aside from having to deal with guards as quickly and as stealthily as possible, they also had to deal with a number of security doors, all apparently with a variety of codes...not that it was a big issue for Oracle as she quickly hacked into them or just used the access codes she'd stolen from Winter. As such, it wasn't long before they'd gained access to rather classified areas.

"Here!" Oracle called out, causing everyone to stop once they were rather deep in the base.

"This is the room?" Noir asked, wanting to reconfirm just in case.

"Yep." Oracle said with a nod, and as if to further confirm it, she punched the code into the nearby keypad, soon opening the door, letting the Phantom Thieves file into the research room Project P.E.N.N.Y was located in.

"There- Er, she is." Skull said looking forward towards the target of their heist.

In the center of the room was a glass pod, and inside was a nearly nude humanoid female with orange hair in a bob cut style, her decency protected only by a few strips of cloth. Surrounding the glass pod was a number of laser tripwires, no doubt set in case of attempts to steal her...like now.

"Well..." Joker said looking at Noir, "Oracle disconnect her and get the data."

"Thank you." Noir whispered as she gave Joker a quick kiss on the lips as Oracle went to the nearby terminal and got to work, having to slip through some of the lasers slowly to get to the panel.

"Ugh, keep the lovey dovey stuff saved until after we steal Penny." Mona groaned.

"Would this be considered stealing or kidnapping?" Fox mused.

"I dunno." Skull said with a shrug and honestly...he didn't feel like thinking about it too hard.

Meanwhile, Oracle had managed to hack into the terminal, and after a few moments, as the security here was tighter than the previous areas, she eventually managed to disable the tripwires around Penny, before the cables disconnected from Penny's back, which proceeded to close up.

"Weird..." Oracle mused as she undid the clamps on Penny's containment pod, causing the inactive Penny to fall forward, with Joker, being the gentleman he is, caught her in his arms before throwing her over his shoulders, as he's the only one of the group that can effectively fight single handed.

Noir narrowed her eyes to Joker in jealousy, though only slightly as she understood why her boyfriend was holding the female android, "What's weird Oracle?" She asked, focusing on something else.

"The only thing here on Penny is her activation code." Oracle said, "I've already transfer that to my Scroll, and deleted it from their servers... But that's it, there's no design plans, no coding, nothing."

"Look's like Doctor Polendina didn't trust anyone but himself with Penny's documentations." Fox mused. However, right as they were in the middle of that, the alarm came on.

"What?!" the group gasped in surprise, before Oracle who was still plugged in found out the cause.

"Damn! It was a double layer trap!" she gasped.

"What do you mean?" Panther asked worriedly.

"The tripwires were the first layer. The second layer was releasing Penny without authorization!" Oracle reported.

"Well, in that case I'd say we've definitely overstayed our welcome," Fox frowned.

"You heard him, let's get out of here," Joker nodded before they went out. Unsurprisingly, the first response to them were several AK-130s that were no doubt set to deploy in emergencies.

"I'm afraid we don't have time for you. Goemon!" Fox said as Goemon appeared and froze the AKs in the front solid.

"So get out of our way! Captain Kidd!" Skull agreed before Captain Kidd appeared and blasted them with a thunderbolt, causing many of them to short circuit, but more were coming.

"I don't think our escape route is gonna work like this," Queen frowned.

"Then we'll have to break through the hard way. Queen?" Joker said.

"Got it! Charge, Johanna!" Queen shouted as Johanna appeared before she and Queen rammed through the gathered AKs, who barely had time to start shooting before they were mowed over.

"Rush them, Milady!" Noir followed up, summoning Milady who started gunning down the AKs who survived the initial charge.

"Zorro, show them your might!" Mona followed up, Zorro blasting the AKs with wind, knocking them all aside and completing the escape path for the group.

The frantic run continued as it wasn't long before they were met with several human guards...though Panther was quick to snag their weapons and then use them as a flail with her whip to knock them aside. Eventually…

"We're at ground level!" Oracle reported.

"Perfect. Fox, freeze a wall!" Joker ordered.

"Understood!" Fox nodded as a nearby wall was promptly frozen.

"Everyone, Physical or explosive skills!" Joker continued, to which everyone nodded and either hit the wall with physical skills or some spells with explosive aspects to them. The result was the wall blowing outward, triggering pretty much EVERY alarm in the base, while the Phantom Thieves got out of the hole, Mona quickly turning into a van, the group driving off into the snow.

Once they were a good distance away and they were sure nobody was tailing them...

"So... what are we gonna do with her?" Skull asked, "She'll need a few changes because I'm pretty sure Ironwood and Winter will recognize her on the streets."

"I can handle that, maybe with a bit of help from Panther." Oracle said, pulling out her Scroll, "Drive around the forest randomly until I can disable her tracking systems."

[The next morning: Winter's Office]

"WHAT!?" Winter roared into her Scroll.

"It's as I said Specialist Schnee," Ironwood said, though stepping back slightly, "Somehow the Phantom Thieves managed to not only infiltrate one of our facilities, but they managed to steal... Kidnap... I don't even know the proper term... Either way Penny is gone, taken by the Phantom Thieves, and even when the security system was triggered, they managed to fight their way through."

"That's impossible." Winter sighed, "How would they even hide Penny, she's got a tracking device implanted-"

"Disabled." Ironwood said, "The Thieves suspected she had such a program."

"What about her hiccups?" Winter demanded, "That's got to be our key to finding her."

"Winter... If they found her tracking system they've likely disabled that lying detector." Ironwood said, "And we can't search by name, Winter I've run over the records and... I'm amazed at just how many people in Atlas alone have the name Penny."

"Did we at least see what the thieves are capable of, or even what they look like?" Winter asked hopefully, knowing there were security cameras.

"...all the security cameras were disabled...though in retrospect it shouldn't be a surprise. They could hack the entire CCT...a single facility's security camera network shouldn't be difficult…" Ironwood groaned loudly.

THAT was the breaking point for Winter. "A moment please General." Winter said softly.

"Take an hour." Ironwood said hanging up.

[Outside the Schnee Mansion]

"RRRRAAAAAAGGGHHHH!"

 **[[]]**

 **Well folks, that's the chapter.**

 **I hope to be able to work on this more often, but the next chapter is most likely going to have a time skip put in.**

 **Anyway I'd like to ask you guys for a little help.**

 **Recently I've begun considering giving Team's RWBY and JNPR Persona's of their own, but I am having trouble figuring them out, let me explain.**

 **In the Persona series you can find similarities between the Persona and the User based on the Persona, you just have to look into the mythology/legends a bit.**

 **As you can imagine, this is not an easy task.**

 **I've only got three idea's that I have locked into confirmation.**

 **Weiss, Blake, and Jaune's Persona's I already know, but I'd like some help from you all for the remaining people.**

 **However I have read many Persona fics and I've seen several cop outs so I'd like to set up some ground rules at the moment.**

 **1: These figures MUST come from Mythology/History/Legends, though I will accept classic literature in certain cases. I will NOT accept Persona's based on video game characters, T.V. characters or anime characters, because that just seems like the writer is just being lazy and not willing to do any form of research outside of sitting on your ass watching anime.**

 **2: I would like for these Persona's to match the user's gender. (Yes I know Naoto's Persona was that of a male figures, however in, admittedly non-canon, Persona spin-off manga that takes place one year after Persona 4, in which Naoto's Persona transformed into a non-combative persona with a more feminine appearance to match Naoto now accepting her femininity... Thus meaning Naoto's persona only appeared male because she though of herself more as a male.)**

 **3: Please P.M. me these idea's, that way I can not only go over these idea's with you, but to also avoid giving people false hope that _ will be _'s Persona.**

 **And yes, Timeless, I will consider your idea, though it will be a last resort in case no one can really find a figure that would match that person better... And feel free to send me more ideas.**

 **EDIT: People, in case you didn't read ALL of the above mentioned idea's I'd like to add one more tiny thing.**

 **Can we please AVOID the suggestions of Nora, Ren, and Pyrrha having the Persona's Thor, Mulan, and Achilles respectively? Yes, I know these were the figures theses characters were BASED on, but this feels like a cop out using them. So look up and read the rules again people before you give ideas.**


	17. Chapter 16

**Don't murder me for being late on this folks, I was kinda working on Team RWBY and JNPR's Persona's alongside procrastinating.**

 **Yes, I have decided on Persona's for everyone... Except Ren admittedly, still having a hard time finding someone for him.**

 **And no, I won't say anything, however I would like to say this.**

 **Everyone who submitted what was pretty much the basis of the 8 Main Characters of RWBY... I have to say a couple of things.**

 **One, I thought I said don't send me the basis of the Team JNPR characters for their Persona's? Granted I will commemorate the guy who sent me the actual NAMES of Valkyrie's for Nora's Persona instead of just saying Valkyrie. And no her Persona isn't Brunhilde, I found one that might work better for Nora.**

 **Second- Remember Persona is the mask you wear to protect yourself from hardship, so for starters- Jaune may be a faker, yes, but like I said about Naoto's persona, Jaune veiws himself as a male, so her Persona could not be Jeanne De Arc. And guys, be honest with me: Do you REALLY see Weiss acting like Snow White? Running from an Evil Queen into a dark forest and living with a bunch of dwarves and treat them NICELY?**

 **This is why I applauded most of the other submissions. We had people thinking about things.**

 **Anyway I've yabbered enough for now, if anyone still wants to submit Persona Idea's for LIE REN, feel free to do so.**

 **[[]]**

[Akira's apartment]

"How's she doing Futaba?" Akira asked as he slipped into Futaba's room, which was minimally decorated, a far cry from what her room back at Sojiro's home was.

"Well..." Futaba said leaning back from Penny's backside, "After I tossed her tracking chip out on the road during that moment of random driving we were doing I started working on what we could do so she'll blend in with us without triggering suspicion."

"So what have you got?" Akira asked looking at Penny and was surprised at the change.

For starters her hair was now the same length as Futaba's, her freckles were removed from her skin, and though her eyes were open, she was still deactivated, and now her eyes were the same color as Futaba's eyes. Furthermore her attire was now different, nothing unique sadly, but a simple green tank top, gray jeans with neon green boots, and Futaba's jacket over her shirt.

"For starters I've removed the hiccups from her system." Futaba said, "I might put that back in later once we're out of Atlas and they've figured Penny isn't the one we stole, but we'll see. I've also ever so slightly raised the pitch of her voice, not an immediately noticeable amount, but enough that sensors wouldn't recognize it when they hear it. I've redone her prints so they are closer to mine, but still a mix of hers. Honestly, unless Mister Polendina himself shows up we shouldn't have to worry."

Akira nodded in acceptance at that, "I'll gather everyone in the kitchen and we'll turn her on." He said standing up,

[]

Once Akira had made coffee for everyone, including Penny as she was built with parts to allow her to replicate human basic needs, Futaba pressed a key on her Scroll and Penny's eyes lit up.

The android blinked twice before looking around the room.

"Hello there." Penny said smiling, "Um... Who are you? This doesn't look like the lab where I was being built."

"Sorry about that." Akira said handing Penny her coffee, "But we had to kidnap you from there."

Penny's eye went wide at that as she jolted up, not spilling the coffee thankfully, "You're criminals!?" Penny said surprised, "What are you planning on doing to me?"

"Keeping you safe for the moment." Makoto said, "We didn't take you hoping for money, or for blackmail, or anything like that."

Penny blinked, "May I inquire as to why I was taken then?" Penny asked slowly sitting back down.

"Those Atlas military guy who help fund you dads research?" Ryuji said taking a sip of his coffee, "Yeah they kinda planned on using you as just another machine even though you gotta soul."

"We could not accept that." Yusuke said adding in his bit, "Though your body may be that of a machines, you still are human, and such careless thought of human life we could not accept."

"I see..." Penny said, her eyes closing. She wasn't sure if she fully believed them, but as it was she didn't have a good enough reason NOT to believe them either. Eventually she decided that she would listen to them for now, but if they proved themselves to be anything else...she knew where to run. "If that is the reason I was taken then I thank you for your help, I will live my life as a human, not as a machine of Atlas…" she said, before adding, "Might I ask who you all are?"

"Akira Kurusu."

"Ryuji Sakamoto."

"Ann Takamaki."

"Haru Okumura."

"Yusuke Kitagawa."

"Makoto Nijima."

"Futaba Sakura."

"Morgana... Kurusu."

Penny jumped at the last one, "T-the cat talked!" She cried out, then blinked, "Is that your Semblance?"

"Not quite." Morgana said, "I'm special. I've got a Faunus form though, and I plan to pose as Akira's younger half brother once we leave Atlas."

Penny nodded, "I understand, Atlas is not a Faunus friendly city." Penny said before taking a sip of her coffee, then went wide eyed and glancing down at the coffee, "This is amazing!" she said as the coffee was delicious.

"Thanks." Akira said, "Futaba's father taught me how to make this, as well as how to make some incredible curry."

"I would love to try it." Penny said smiling. So far they seemed nice enough.

Before Penny could take another sip there was a knock at the door to the apartment.

"I got it." Ann said standing up and running over to the door and opening it, "Oh, hey Winter, what brings you here?"

"I've had a long night Miss Takamaki." Winter said, "May I come in? I'd like a cup of Akira's coffee if you don't mind."

"Sure thing." Ann said smiling and stepping aside, though once Winter stepped passed Ann her face morphed into one of slight panic, especially when she saw Penny.

Penny simply smiled and waved at Winter as she sipped her coffee again, and internally Futaba was glad she had modified Penny so much, or they'd have been caught then and there...and after everything they'd been through that'd be an utterly humiliating way to get caught.

"Hello again Winter." Akira said with a small smile as he grabbed a mug and poured the still fresh coffee from the pot into the Mug for her, "How has your day been?"

Winter sighed as she took the coffee from Akira and sipped it, "Not well admittedly." Winter said, "The Phantom Thieves struck again. I'm not at liberty to say where though."

"Fair enough." Akira said nodding, "So you've lost some sleep."

"I have." Winter admitted before looking at Penny, then she checked her Scroll after getting a message from Weiss, before returning it to her pocket, "Who might this be."

Futaba opened her mouth, but Penny beat her to it.

"Hello Miss Schnee." Penny said happily, "I'm Penny Sakura, sorry we couldn't have met sooner, I found myself bedridden for the past week so I couldn't risk getting you and any other visitor ill," she said, choosing to play along. She'd still not seen any reason to distrust the thieves.

Winter raised an eyebrow before nodding, "That's fair I suppose." Winter said before looking at Futaba, "So that must be your sister then?"

"Yep." Futaba said, "Mom got to name me, dad got to name my sis here."

"I see." Winter said finishing her coffee before returning the mug to Akira, "Well, thank you for the coffee Akira, I'd like you to email me the address of the coffee shop you plan to open it, I admittedly came here to see if you could hold up to your word. I didn't expect to find myself wanting to sponsor the shop. Now if you'll excuse me I must leave. Weiss is having some troubles with Whitely." Winter finished before heading toward the door.

"Good luck catching those Phantom Thieves Miss Schnee." Yusuke called as she left.

"Thank you." Winter said as she left the room.

The room was silent for a few minute to ensure Winter was gone, Morgana heading toward the door and slipped through the small cat door just to check.

Eventually Morgana came back in and nodded.

"That was some quick thinking on your part Penny." Yusuke said, "Why did you choose to pose as Futaba's sister?"

Penny smiled, "Well I figured posing as a relative to one of you would lower the odds of me being pegged as the stolen android, and Futaba and I have the most similarities so it would be the most believable choice."

Ryuji whistled in approval, "Wow, you're pretty smart Penny." Ryuji said with a grin.

"Thank you." Penny said, "May I have some more coffee?"

[In front of the Apartment complex]

Winter looked at her scroll as it compared the voice of Penny Sakura to Penny Polendina. As much as Winter hated to admit it, with the fact there are well over a dozen Penny's in Atlas this may be the fastest way to confirm if that Penny was the one stolen.

She didn't expect to find a Penny in Kurusu's place, but she decided to check anyway, thankful her younger sister had sent her a message about Whitely at the time she did.

"Voice failed to match. Subject is not the same."

"Damn." Winter said with a sigh, "I was hoping to do this fast." Sure she didn't want to think that Kurus and his friends were the thieves, seeing as they seemed like decent people, but you could never tell when it came to criminals. So far though, it seemed that was not the case, much to her relief and disappointment.

With that Winter pocketed her Scroll and walked back to her home, thankful she at least got to taste Akira's coffee...

Though now she had begun to wonder if she could ever accept normal coffee again.

 **[[]]**

 **Alright folks that's the chapter.**

 **Now admittedly this might not be too long, but I figured it's been too long since I updated this.**

 **Now, on a completely unrelated subject I'd like to say something about Pokemon Go.**

 **I need new friends on the game for the Celebi research tasks so folks, here's my Friend code... And I apologize in advance if I don't send you guys gifts every day, my family and I don't get out long enough every day to send gifts to 30+ People.**

 **8503 9584 9720**

 **Thanks in advance to everyone who sends me a friend code.**

 **Edit: Sorry, found out I got Ryuji's family name wrong, my bad. Still I've gone as replaced the teaser and chapters 1 - 14 with edited ones provided to me by TimelessDreamerNeo.**

 **Also I'e just downloaded Shin Megami Tensei Liberator Dx2 and as such I give out my friend code for that game as well. Sorry if I take a while to accept your friend request, the friend system is weird I'll admit.**

 **Dx2 Code: KQD8364S**

 **At least I'm pretty sure that's my Friend I.D. Well either way I can't wait for help from you guys or helping you all.**


	18. Chapter 17

**Well folks I'm back with another chapter... Still not completely sure on Ren's Persona just yet.**

 **Also I realized I ended up giving Ruby and Pyrrha the same initial Persona... My fault really, they were on the opposite sides of the paper so I'm gonna have to run through options again for those two... If you want you can submit someone, who knows you might come up with something better than I did.**

 **But please for the love of Philemon I DON'T wanna hear Little Red Riding Hood or Achilles pop up as suggestions people.**

 **Anyway time for a time-skip chapter... You might recognize it actually at a certain point.**

 **[[]]**

[Winter's Office- SDC Headquarters]

"Are you certain of this?" Winter demanded as she stared hard at her Scroll, which had General Ironwood's image on it.

"I'm certain Specialist Schnee." Ironwood said, "It's not as flashy as what they did when targeting your father, however after something like that I doubt they'll need anything bigger than a card, especially for someone like Goldan."

"I'm heading there now." Winter said standing up from her desk and pulling her saber out from under it, "You're not stopping me sir."

Ironwood sighed, "I won't Winter, however I've had a pair of the new AK 200's sent there ahead of you." Ironwood said, "Remember if you cannot defeat them then try to collect as much data as you can about them."

"I doubt they'll be too much to handle." Winter said before she hung up.

[]

[Goldan Mansion- Garage]

Winter stood patiently in the garage, which easily would have been the best escape point after triggering the alarm as they had done.

Winter was smirking as she waited, her chance of revenge was close at hand. It was then the door was kicked open, revealing to Winter the Phantom Thieves themselves.

"The hell?" the skull masked one asked, "She's an Atlesian Specialist! The hells she doing playing security guard?" So he knew who she was at the least.

"Who might you be?" The leader, based on the fact he was the one to appear visually during their message, asked as he put his hands in his pockets, keeping his voice level.

The actions of the leader was pissing her off, dismissing her as not a threat, "Atlesian Specialist Winter Schnee. I'm here to bring you in for your breaking and entering, as well as robbery."

"Schnee?" The leader asked, "How's your father been doing?"

Winter held back a growl as she narrowed her eyes "I'm not the one who's going to be answering questions here." Winter said, "But I'm going to be bringing you in, get them."

One of the AK200's lifted it's rifle to begin firing, however the skull masked thief was faster as he rushed in to kick the 200 in the face, knocking it back and messing up it's aim before caving it's head in with his club.

The other aimed at the leader, only for its gun to be ripped from its hands by the cat themed woman's whip, and was soon destroyed as well by gunfire coming from the fox themed thief's weapon.

Winter glared at the offending group. and felt rather upset at how easily the AK-200's were destroyed, before rushing in to attack the leader, who jumped to the side to dodge her initial stab and quickly switched his weapon to dagger mode to block a slash from her.

Winter pressed her weapon against the leaders, feeling she was gaining the upper hadn until she was knocked slightly to the side by a shotgun blast from the skull masked thief- A result of her burning hatred that she had failed to reel in to which she will scold herself for later, allowing the leader to back flip away and shift his weapon into a pistol to fire at her.

Seeing his next tactic, she pulled a second, smaller blade from the first one and used both of them to block the bullet's until the leader's gun ran out of ammo. Using the opening, Winter then created a Glyph that summoned an Alpha Beowolf that charged at the group, hopefully to distract them so she can take one of them down.

But the aristocratic looking thief smirked and pulled her grenade launcher off her back and fired once, blasting away the Summoned Grimm.

Winter growled at the fact her plan so easily failed, "Why don't you take off your mask?" Winter growled, "Stop hiding behind those things like the criminals you are and turn yourselves in!"

To her surprise the leader smirked, "Fine, I'll take off the mask." the leader said reaching up to his mask, "Just remember you asked for it."

Winter raised her eyebrow as she readied her guard, from the way he said it she could feel that he was looking for a reason to take his mask off.

"Come forth, Arsene!" The leader shouted as he tore off his mask, the mask shattering and burning away in blue flames, though face was also still covered in blue flames, obscuring his identity much to Winter's ire as she jumped back at the sudden appearance of the flames.

Then she heard the sinister laughter.

Blue flames emerged from behind the leader which formed a rather intimidating figure, it was larger that the thief, it had a black torso like an vest with a white cravat on it's neck, its arms were covered in a long sleeves red vest that reached it's clawed hands, it's legs had on leggings that covered the entirety of its legs, but not the waist and had boots with blades posing as long heels, two large black feathered wings on it's back, a ridiculously tall top hat on it's head. Said head was completely covered by a sinister black mask with red eyes and mouth and had two long horns curling to the front of its face.

'A Grimm?' Winter thought as she stared at the summoned creature, 'No... Not quite, it seems too refined, nothing bone-like.' Then the leader grabbed one of the chains dangling from the creature.

"Arsene! Eiha!" The leader commanded as he swung the chain forward, which caused Winter to focus once again on the fight, only for a red and black mass of energy to burst up from below her, tearing out a chunk of her Aura and knocking her back down to the ground.

'What the hell was that?' Winter thought, as she resisted the urge to run her tailbone.

The being the leader referred to as Arsene faded as the mask reformed on his face, and before she could stand back up, the five thieves shifted their weapons into their respective gun forms and pointed them at Winter's head, surrounding her and keeping a decent distance to prevent her from disarming them should she retaliate.

'If I even so much as move in a hostile manner I'm not gonna make it.' Winter thought, glancing around.

"What's the Atlas Military doing here?" The leader demanded, "Last I checked they don't exactly do mercenary work."

Winter scoffed as she looked around "We aren't, but when Goldan came up to us saying that is was the Phantom Thieves that were targeting him we decided to make an exception just this once." Winter admitted.

"So the reason you're playing security guard is because it's us?" The aristocrat asked, "Don't know know what Goldan did less than half a month ago?"

"I don't care about that!" Winter snapped, "I volunteered the moment I heard it was you all." 'But what did Goldan do to get these guys after them though?'

"Really? You're still on about that?" The skull masked thief asked, "Sheesh that was almost half a year ago, lay off it already, besides shouldn't you be thanking us for what happened afterwards?"

"Thanking you!?" Winter shouted feeling livid, yes she was glad her father actually acted like a father, but the price was too high. The only reason the SDC hadn't crashed in the six months since the attack was due to it's near monopolization of the Dust market, "You-"

"Goldan recently robbed the Chieftain of Kou Kuana just a few weeks ago." The fox thief said suddenly, annoying Winter that she was cut off, "While he can't do anything now that Goldan has returned to Atlas, because Atlas favor's it's rich and human over the poor and the Faunus, we can."

"So, you were hired to steal it back then?" Winter asked, wondering they were simply paid to target her father.

"No, we came of our own choice." The leader said, "In fact, Oracle should have sent General Ironwood incriminating evidence about Goldan by now."

"What?" Winter asked surprise, wondering if Ironwood would even accept the evidence.

At that moment the garage door to the outside is busted down by a black van backing up into it, the black van has a yellow stripe going down the middle, it also curiously had a cat tail and cat ears poking out of it. Something that caused Winter to do a double take to make sure she hadn't inhaled something.

The back door of the van burst open to reveal a woman with long orange hair wearing a mask that looked like large black goggles with orange lenses, she wore a skintight black bodysuit with fluorescent neon green glowing strips and matching black boots with neon green soles.

"Get in!" The woman shouted.

"Don't need to tell me twice." The skull masked thief shouted, blasting the ground near Winter to keep her off balance and allowed the group to jump into the van, which drove off soon after.

Winter scrambled back up and looked out of the hole the van had made, but the snowfall was too thick to let her see properly.

Closing her eyes Winter took a deep breath and let it out slowly... Before letting out a loud roar and punching the metal of the garage door, denting it slightly.

[Beacon Academy- Ozpin's office]

"Are you certain General?" Ozpin said.

"I'm sending you the image now Ozpin." Ironwood said, "It bears a remarkable resemblance to the Grimm."

As Ironwood said that the image appeared on Ozpin's computer, It showed Winter standing in shock as the leader of the Phantom Thieves stood in front of the Grimm-like creature, blue flames covering his face.

"I won't deny that Ironwood." Ozpin admitted, "However I'm not certain they are one Salem's side."

"What makes you say that Ozpin?" Ironwood demanded.

"Think about it Ironwood." Ozpin said, "They choose to hack the CCT to send a message, they didn't shut it down, because of this you noticed the lack of defenses on them and have devoted much of your time to fix them. And their attack on Jacques Schnee was to turn him into a better man, they could have just as easily killed him could they not have?"

"Ozpin... They could just as easily be getting us to lower our guard!" Ironwood shouted.

"And declaring themselves Thieves to the world be something that would cause us to lower our guard?" Ozpin asked, "If anything it should be enough for us to put up our guards."

[Atlas Train station]

"I've got the tickets." Futaba said as she and Penny walked up.

"Great... When's the train gonna get here?" Morgana asked as he poked his head up from Akira's bag.

"Ten minutes." Futaba said, "They uh... Don't allow pets outside the cargo though."

"Then we'll just treat this like the last time we took a train and didn't pay to bring Morgana." Ann said.

This caused Morgana's eyes to bulge in fear, "No way! I'm staying in the bag completely silent!" Morgana said.

This caused Penny to tilt her head, "Why is that? What happened last time?" Penny asked.

"Ask him." Morgana said hiding in the bag after glaring at Akira.

Penny turned her head to Akira in confusion.

"We had to pretend Morgana was a toy that meows when you press his head." Akira said.

"So why is Morgana acting like that?" Makoto asked.

Akira's grey eyes were hidden by the glare of his glasses as he spoke. "Button mash."

 **[[]]**

 **So now we've seen the heist from Winter's view, and the Phantom Thieves are heading to Vale.**

 **Some may consider this a cop out of a chapter, but honestly I would never have done this originally until someone ended up putting the idea in my head, forgot who and through what though.**

 **Anyway I think next chapter will be more than considerate of an apology for you all.**

 **See you in six months at the worst.**

 **Also for fellow Amity Arena players I've created my own Academy.**

 **Terminal.**

 **Please PM me or leave a comment on any story you wish if you want to join, it's Invitation Only so you send a request in the game and I'll accept ONLY if I've been messaged on this site in one form or another- Otherwise I'm gonna refuse you right off the bat.**

 **And once you're a member feel free to request any cards... Even some as common as WF Thugs, cause even if you don't ever use them, the people who give these cards to other players still receive rewards in the form of Premium Dust and Lien (And EXP But that's a lesser matter really) so really, if you've got all you want just request crap cards, let everyone be rewarded for being around, makes it easier on all of us.**


	19. Chapter 18

**Well folks, today we lost a great man (At least at the time I'm writing this part).**

 **So people, let's just have a moment of silence for the great Stan Lee shall we people, continue reading afterwards.**

 **I'm gonna assume you've had your moment of silence from here on out so let the chapter begin.**

 **[[]]**

Akira made sure to keep his bag zipped as the group effectively took control of the room they had selected for their ride to Vale, as much as it was therapeutic to mess with Morgana as pay back during their early career as Phantom Thieves, he would try to avoid situations like such again.

"We're gonna need to come up with a new name for Morgana when we reach Vale." Futaba said as she looked through the trains systems on her Scroll... Which apparently was the first thing she did when they sat down.

"Why is that?" Penny asked as she finally looked away from the window and the open ocean, as well as the MANY defensive towers standing in the ocean, something Akira could understand, over the ocean is when the train and the people on board are the most vulnerable.

"It's simple really." Haru said, "If we call Morgana his name when he's taken to form of a Faunus it might prove a bit uncomfortable to many who know him as a cat." Haru then paused for a moment, "And it might cause people to think we're racist of we treat Morgana as a cat if they know he's a Faunus."

Penny nodded once, "That would make sense." Penny said still smiling, "So how about Morgan then?"

At that moment Morgana popped his head out, "I kind of like that." Morgana said, "It simple and easy to remember. It might be close to my real name, but since Morgana is often considered a girls name you wouldn't think I was the cat."

"And if someone asks why Morgana is a male cat with a female name?" Penny asked.

"He was named that before I found him." Akira said explaining his plan, "And I found him at an animal shelter."

Penny nodded and turned to Ryuji, "Where did you find Morgana in the first place?" Penny asked.

"We found him in a dungeon cell when Akira and I accidentally entered Kamoshida's Palace." Ryuji said, "We were kind of freaking out about it."

"You were freaking out." Akira said with a smirk, "The most I was freaking out was when I first summoned Arsene."

"Of course, our unflappable leader everyone." Ryuji joked, Penny giving a chuckle as did the rest of the Thieves.

Akira was glad he had told Penny the history of the Phantom Thieves, it helped when they brought up things that had happened so Penny would understand... Granted there were some things that no one had told her, minor things they hadn't thought to be important for the most part.

"Um... Akira." Penny said after a minute after she stopped chuckling, "Would you... Would it be alright if I joined Beacon Academy when we reach Vale?"

Makoto perked up at this and turned to the mechanical girl, "Why do you ask Penny?" Makoto asked, Penny had never brought up wanting to be a Huntress ever since they took her from the lab she was being held in.

Penny just pulled her metal pack off her back, something Futaba had found plans of in the data base when they first grabbed Penny and made some modifications when they built it for her self defense. Originally the pack was designed to release 12 blades that were attached by wires to her wrist. Needless to say Futaba noticed a dangerous flaw in the use of those wires.

Sure they were one of the easier ways to control the blades, but cutting those wires makes them useless and should the wires get caught on a person then Aura could only protect so much before things got... Messy.

Thus Futaba redesigned the blueprints, using more than a healthy dose of Gravity Dust Futaba managed to replace the blades with anti-gravitation devices controlled by very specific signals, with the wires still in the blades that can reattach to Penny should the anti-grav fail or Penny needs the wires to cut through objects.

"Well..." Penny said rubbing her arm, one of the new ticks Penny developed when Futaba upgraded her emotions, "I know I was built to fight the Grimm in place of humans and you guys saved me from that, but I still want to help fight the Grimm." Penny then looked back out the Window, where the ocean was now replaced by forest, "I couldn't ask while we were at Atlas because they might still be looking for me there... And I didn't want to put you in danger."

"Penny." Akira said, "You can go to Beacon, none of us are stopping you from doing that."

Penny's optics widened, as Ann put her hand on Penny's shoulder, "Besides we're... You know who... We're helping people in our own way." Ann said, "Besides, you're armed, you've got an Aura, what's the worst that could-"

Ann's mouth was then covered by Akira's hand, "Don't say it." Akira warned, "We don't need trouble on this-"

Akira was then interrupted by Futaba's phone making a red flash and a subtle beeping, "The interior security system just went off."

"What's going on?" Yusuke asked sitting forward as Futaba tapped away at her Scroll.

"Bringing up the view of the AK-130's in there." Futaba said, bringing up the view of one of the droids in the back cars of the train, catching only a brief glimpse of a black haired woman with cat ears wearing black and white, and a red haired man with small horns on his head wielding a katana before the droid was sliced in half.

"The White Fang." Penny said surprised, she then jumped again when there were several bursts of blue fire from the Phantom Thieves, "You're going to stop them?"

"Considering the high fatality rate of the Vale Branch of the White Fang it's likely that whatever they're on board for will extend to killing everyone on the train." Oracle said, "We're better safe than sorry."

"Will you be okay?" Penny asked.

"They aren't Shadows." Joker said, "And those six months in Mementos wasn't just us beating down people's Shadows." A blue flame appeared in Jokers hand as he slapped it on his mask, causing the flames to spread across the mask, "I was making sure to gather a variety of Persona's."

[]

Sneaking out to the back of the train was easy, there were no guards on the train except the droids guarding the Dust in the back.

When the window to the room the White Fang was in was filled by light suddenly Joker kicked the door open, causing the two Faunus to jump. The cat had her blade raised to disconnect the train.

"Who the hell are-" The red haired man said before he saw Joker's mask, "The Phantom Thieves." He said in surprise lowering his blade, as did the woman as Joker stepped past her, not fearing a back attack as the other Phantom Thieves filed out, effectively pushing the woman back onto the car.

The two Faunus then looked Fox and Panther, the red haired one growling, "Are you two mocking the Faunus dressing like THAT!?" The man shouted, "To thing I respected you for kicking the Schnee off his high horse, but if two of you are going to mock the Faunus then-"

"Are you done?" Joker asked as he held his hands in his pockets, causing the man to blink at the lack of reaction, "The outfits are a reflection of ourselves, our rebellious will given form."

"So... The fox tail and panther tail?" The woman asked.

"Foxes are elegant, and deceptive, just like Fox." Joker said, "And panthers are both beautiful and deadly, just like Panther herself." At the nod of the woman's head Joker focused his attention back to the red haired man, "So. You saw our message then?"

"Who didn't?" The man growled.

"Then you should know that whatever you planned on doing on this train, we're going to protect innocent lives." Joker said, adjusting his footing as the train turned.

"Innocent?" The man said, "No humans are innocent! They continue to treat us like dirt, and the people in power do nothing to stop it, the law doesn't bother stopping those dragging us through the mud, and often do that themselves. Why are these Atlesian's any better than them?"

Joker just narrowed his eyes at the man, "You're a fool." Joker said causing the woman to flinch at the thief's flat tone.

"Coming from you Joker, that's saying something." Mona said as he stepped up, "But he's right, you claim that all humans are guilty? Sure there are the guilty ones, but what of the truly innocent ones? How many children do you think are on this train?"

"I don't care." The man said, causing the woman to gasp, "They'll just end up like the rest of the humans."

Joker's eyes narrowed as he pulled his knife out, "Make sure no one leaves this car." Joker said, "I can handle him."

"You're not getting cocky are you?" Skull asked as he stepped back, pulling the woman with him.

"I'm not." Joker said, "His weapon is that katana at his side, a rifle built into the sheath, judging from the lack of a clip like Foxes he's got a much tighter limit of times he can fire the gun. Furthermore his weapon lacks Dust Chambers, meaning his the power of his attacks come only from his sword and gun." With that Joker slapped his mask once more, changing to a Persona that was perfect for countering this type of opponent, "I've got the perfect counter."

"Of course you do." Noir said giving Joker a quick peck on the cheek, "For luck, not that you need it."

"Thank you." Joker said stepping forward, "Now then, can I at least have something to refer to you by?"

The Faunus raised his gun, "Adam." He said before firing his gun.

[Persona 5: Last Surprise]

Faster than the two faunus could blink Joker raised his dagger to block the bullet, he didn't want his secret found out too fast. Then he switch Lupin to it's pistol form and shot at Adam twice.

"NO!" The woman shouted, "His Semblance let's him absorb attack to power his strongest attack!"

"Blake! Adam shouted enraged as he blocked the bullets, "What are you doing!?"

Joker just smirked, this would just make things a bit easier then. He nearly killed himself when he was a victim of it after all.

"Don't lose focus." Joker chastised as he ran toward Adam with Lupin in it's knife form, and struck at Adam, who stepped back from the attack and slashed at Joker, who flipped away from the attack and shifted Lupin to it's pistol form and began shooting at Adam again.

"What are you doing!?" Blake shouted about to run forward, only for Skull to hold his arm out to stop her.

"Whoa there." Skull said, "Relax, he knows what he's doing. An idiot wouldn't be leading the Phantom Thieves in the first place."

Adam smirked as he blocked the bullet's with his sword before sheathing it when Joker stopped firing.

"Thanks for getting rid of the Schnee." Adam said as he ran toward Joker, "But this is goodbye." With that Adam unsheathed his sword, unleashing his Semblance with the intent to kill Joker with Moonslice.

Joker's only move was to raise his arm in a seemingly feeble attempt to block.

Blake shut her eyes and turned away as the blade touched Joker's arm.

[OST End]

"AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!" Adam cried out, causing Blake to face the fight once again and was shocked at what she saw.

Adam was on his knee's in front of Joker, his sword arm severed halfway between the elbow and wrist and his sword was still clutched in his dismembered arm, the sheath dropped as Adam clutched the stump and began wrapping it to cut the blood flow.

Joker stood there without a scratch on him, Blake blinked hard as she looked at him, as for a moment she could have sworn she was a blue statue hovering in the same place he was.

Adam stood up and backed away from Joker as he looked at him in fear, "Impossible..." Adam said, "No Semblance could make me feel the pain of my own attack." He growled as he ripped a red hot piece of metal from a destroyed AK, the sparking wires constantly heating the metal, and pressed it against the stump to cauterize the wound.

Before Joker could answer, Adam threw himself off the train and was left behind in the woods.

"What a maniac." Mona said before he looked at Blake for the first time, and his heart skipped a beat when he did.

"He wasn't always like that." Blake said looking sadly in Adam's direction.

"Then what was he like before?" Joker asked as he walked up to Blake.

Blake looked at Joker, "On one condition..." Blake said, "Steal his heart, just like you did Jacques's."

Joker pulled out his scroll, "What's his last name?" Joker asked.

"Taurus." Blake said thinking he was planning to write it down.

"Adam Taurus." Joker said as the app was opened.

 _"Candidate found."_ The app responding before expanding options.

"Congratulations Blake." Joker said, "Adam Taurus is now a target of the Phantom Thieves."

"Still need some things but we can work on it later." Skull said, "So, what about Adam?"

Blake looked to the forest as it passed, "When we were kids Adam was pretty nice, when he joined the White Fang he was nervous about how the humans would react, several attacks from both Grimm and humans began to change things." Blake said, "The first time he killed a human my father Ghira berated him for it, but Sienna Khan praised him... Pretty soon the 'Accidents' began to increase, and when Sienna took over they stopped becoming accidents. The Adam I knew died around that time, replaced by an embodiment of rage and spite."

Joker nodded, "And you planned to leave the Fang today." Joker deduced, "To attempt to uphold what legacy your father left."

Blake's ears drooped, "That's one way to look at it." Blake admitted, when she looked up again Joker was holding out a small box to her, "What's this?"

"Don't know." Oracle spoke up, "All we know is that Ivan Goldan stole this from your old man, figured you would have a better way of getting it back to him than us."

Blake's eye went wide as she snatched the box and opened it, inside was a small silver locket. Blake tossed the box aside as she held up the locket, then she opened it and saw the picture inside.

It showed Ghira and Kali hugging one another, the latter of the two was holding a small pink bundle that held baby Blake, her ears folded onto her head. On the other side was a short note.

'So you don't forget us Blake- Love Mom and Dad.'

"This wasn't my dad's." Blake said, "It was a gift for me... Goldan must have taken it from the Menagerian Postal Service."

Joker nodded, "Then it's yours then Blake, keep it safe." Joker said before he and the thieves re-entered the train.

Blake closed the locket and held it close as she shut her eyes and let her tears flow free.

 **[[]]**

 **Well folks, that's the chapter.**

 **Now then, I've got a couple things to say.**

 **First, for all Amity Arena players please consider joining my Academy, Terminal, if you haven't done so already. And remember to PM Me/Comment if you wish to join otherwise I'm denying your request to join.**

 **Second and this is the bigger one: Some of you may remember a time when Timeless Dreamer Neo and Swift56 were working on a Reading for this fic. It didn't really last very long and after checking in with Timeless, he said it was okay if someone wanted to adopt his story.**

 **If anyone wishes to adopt Reading Remnant's Phantom Thieves then please PM Timeless about it... And please, don't send in a PM if you already have too many stories you're juggling at the same time, don't add to you workload unnecessarily.**

 **Anyway with that done I'll see you guys later... And please don't whine to Timeless about why he's not doing the Reading anymore, no one likes assholes like that.**


	20. Chapter 19

**Well folks time for another chapter of the ACTUAL Phantom Thieves story.**

 **Of course... Well you'll see, I had to actually get around to doing some research for this chapter because of one thing.**

 **Also, thanks to Timeless Dreamer Neo and Swift56 I have finally gotten Persona's for Ruby and Ren. This means I have Persona for all of Team's RWBY and JNPR.**

 **Now I just need to do a bit of research on the rest of the Arcana and I'll have the Arcana's of the two teams.**

 **Anyway enjoy the chapter folks.**

 **[[]]**

[Signal Academy]

"Yaaaaaang!" Ruby cried out as her older half sister dragged her across the hallways of the academy. Today was the last day of the School Year and due to the number of students going to Beacon, as well as the overwhelming success of the fund-raisers toward the less fortunate the academy decided to throw a student fair in the courtyard.

"Sorry sis but I don't wanna miss a minute of this fair!" Yang cheered with a grin.

Ruby stopped resisted and just crossed her arms with a pout as her Sister continued to drag her along, "You just wanna go pig out."

"That's not true." Yang said still grinning as she and her sister entered the sunlight of the courtyard, "Now where is it?"

"Orchid Pizza's are over there. Ruby deadpanned as she pointed behind Yang, as she could see the pizza stand and the massive oven that always seemed to be where ever they set up.

"Thanks sis." Yang said letting go of Ruby, "Continental Challenge here I come!" she shouted running off toward the stand.

Ruby sighed and shook her head at Yang, ever since Yang discovered Orchid Pizza's Continental Challenge she was obsessed with completing all three stages.

The first was the Menagerie Pizza, a large pizza with a diameter of 4 feet topped with at least 3 toppings of the eater's choice.

Then there was the Anima Pizza, a 7 foot diameter pizza with a minimum of 4 toppings.

Finally there was the Remnant Pizza, an intimidating pizza with a diameter of 10 feet and a minimum of 6 toppings.

The Menagerie Pizza costs 500 Lien if you can't eat the whole thing in less than 30 minutes. The Anima Pizza 700, and the Remnant Pizza cost 1,000 Lien if you can't shove that monster down into your stomach in 30 minutes. Orchid's got a lot of money out of the people who fail these challenges, and so far only one person had ever conquered the Remnant Pizza, and that was the girl who created the challenge.

Yang had yet to conquer the Menagerie Pizza, though Ruby usually got the third Yang couldn't eat.

"Might as well look around see what I can do." Ruby said turning around and beginning to walk around.

After about twenty minutes of looking around and winning herself several prizes, including a Beowolf stuffed animal, several pins for her collection that she had started when she was six, and a cute doll of a snowman in a blue hat, Ruby found herself looking at a velvet blue tent that had a sign standing out front.

'Get your fortune told by the long nosed fortune teller.'

"Never had my fortune told before." Ruby said to herself, before smiling, "I guess I could have a look inside." with that Ruby pushed aside the curtain and sat at the stool inside before looking up, when she did she jump.

[Persona 5- Aria of the Soul]

"Hello there." Igor said to Ruby as she looked up, "My name is Igor, it's a pleasure to meet you miss." Igor then held out his hand to shake Ruby's.

"Ummm... Hi, my names Ruby." Ruby said shaking Igor's hand, "So... You're a fortune teller?"

"Indeed I am." Igor said picking up a deck of cards, these cards were also velvet blue, "Do you believe in fortune telling?"

"I've never really had one told to me before." Ruby admitted, "Well, except those machines that just give you a cards with a random piece of advice on them but I don't think those are fortunes."

Igor simply chuckled, "Some people prefer a bit of wisdom." Igor said, "I however prefer to use the Tarot as I find the arcana to relate better to humanity."

"Why do you say that?" Ruby asked tilting her head.

Igor smiled, "The arcana is the means by which all is revealed." Igor said as he set the top three cards of the deck onto the table, "They could reveal to you what a person is truly like, or perhaps the future... Shall I read your future?"

"Sure." Ruby said nodding her head.

Igor reached for the first card, the one to Ruby's left, and flipped it. Revealing the image of a crumbling tower.

"The Tower, in it's upright position it mean sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation or awakening." Igor said, causing Ruby to gulp.

"I hope that's not a bad sign." Ruby said to herself.

The middle card Igor flipped revealed the image of a man hung on a tree by his foot.

"The Hanged Man, it too is upright, meaning pause, surrender, letting go, and new perspectives." Igor said.

Igor then flipped the third card, a woman emptying water into a river below a star.

"The Star, it means hope, faith, purpose, renewal, spirituality when upright like it is." Igor said calmly looking at the three cards, "It appears that in the near future there will a sudden change in your life caused by chaotic forces, this will result in you bearing a new perspective in the world around you, but in this new perspective your faith will bring hope and purpose to those around you."

"That's..." Ruby said looking at the cards, "I... don't know what to say about this, I'll keep it in mind though mister Igor." With that Ruby made for her wallet until Igor held up his hand.

"There is no need for your Lien Miss Rose." Igor said, "I do this simply to help better those who visit."

"Oh... Thanks." Ruby said with a smile as she stood up, "Have a nice day Igor." Ruby said leaving the tent, not noticing the blue butterfly that had left the tent with her.

[Ost End]

Once Ruby was outside she paused, "Wait... How did he know my last name?" Ruby muttered to herself about to go back in, only for her shoulder to be grabbed by Yang.

"Hey sis..." Yang groaned as she put most of her weight on Ruby, her other hand holding a cardboard box, "Ready to go home?"

Ruby sighed, "Yang you cold have waited until after you had played the games before eating yourself into a stomachache... You didn't even win the challenge did you?" Ruby said sternly looking at Yang.

"Nope." Yang groaned before looking up, "A Fortune teller? You said you didn't like those."

"I don't like the mechanical ones Yang." Ruby said, "If I want bits of wisdom I'd go talk to one of my teachers. Besides there's an actual guy in there... A old guy with a huge nose."

"How huge?" Yang asked.

"Enough that I didn't want to bring it up but felt uncomfortable looking at it." Ruby said, thinking about the fortune she received, "As for the fortune he gave me... He said that there would be a sudden change to my life, one that reshaped how I saw the world, a change that would give me a purpose."

Yang tilted her head at the fortune, "Weird." Yang muttered, "Well it's probably nothing you need to worry about. I mean I'm going to Beacon while you're staying here, maybe that's the sudden change."

"Maybe." Ruby said putting a hand to her chin, "But... I don't feel like it's that simple." Ruby muttered.

[Vale]

"So this is the place you bought Akira?" Penny asked looking at the empty building they had in front of them.

"Yes." Akira said, "The ground floor is large enough to start up the cafe, and the upper floors have enough space for us to live."

"Well it is a nice place." Haru admitted looking at the building, "But it could do with some tender love and care."

"And some furniture." Ryuji said with his face pressed up against the window of the building.

"Get your face off the window." Morgana said from Akira's bag.

"He's right right who knows when the last time that window was cleaned." Makoto pointed out.

"Have you already ordered what you need?" Yusuke asked looking at the building as Akira walked up to it and unlocked the door.

"I have." Akira said, "Though furniture for our room we'll have to go shopping and pick out ourselves."

"I've already found a place with good stuff and decent prices." Futaba added.

"Have you decided on a name for the place yet?" Ann asked.

"I have." Akira said with a smile, not choosing to say more.

"Aren't you gonna tell us?" Ryuji asked.

"Not yet." Akira said, "You'll know it when we open though."

 **[[]]**

 **Alright folks, that's the chapter for you all.**

 **Remember to review if you enjoyed, and I'm gonna take a small pause on the Persona stuff for about a week so I can work on my other stories.**

 **See you then folks.**


	21. Chapter 20

**Merry Christmas everyone! Today is the day we celebrate the Phantom Thieves blew the brains out of Yaldabaoth.**

 **Well... It's also a holiday about spending time with your families.**

 **Anyway I've been trying like hell to get this chapter out but dear god the universe seemed against me writing today, but I'm as stubborn as a mule and I will write tonight. No idea what I'm gonna write but I'm gonna write.**

 **[[]]**

Joker and Queen stood outside of a bar known in one of the seedier districts of Vale.

"This is Juniors?" Queen asked looking at the building in front of them.

"According to Mona." Joker said checking the address that Mona had given him. While everyone was busy setting up the the coffee shop Morgana was looking around Vale for anything noteworthy.

What the cat found was criminals heading to a club called Junior's that is run by the most informed information broker in Vale, Hei Xiong- Also known as Junior.

Joker's plan was simple, seeing as people that accessed the Phan-site couldn't know everything it would help to have an ear in the underground, and since Junior also happens to offer a henchmen loaning service a lot of criminals tend to let the guy know their plan.

Another thing to note is that word would spread that the Phantom Thieves were in Vale, something that could cause many to jump- Be it in excitement or fear.

"Ready?" Joker asked walking up to the door, only for Queen to stop him.

"If we want someone like this on our side we'll probably have to show him we mean business." Queen said, "I'll wait out here, just fire once and I'll bust down the door."

Joker smirked, "Got it." He said walking up to the door.

"Hold up." One of the two men at the door said, "Business or pleasure?"

"Business." Joker said, "Surprised you didn't ask for I.D."

"You've got a mask on." The man said opening the door, "If I ask for I.D. I'm just gonna get pummeled."

Joker nodded and stepped inside the club, this caused many of the patron's inside who saw him take a double take.

"Hey does that mask look familiar?" A woman asked.

"Isn't that the guy who called out Schnee?" A man asked.

"Crap why didn't I bring my scroll?" A young man muttered.

Joker ignored these comments and questions and walked up to the bar, "I'm looking for Hei Xiong." Joker said.

The man at the bar, an older looking man wearing a white shirt and and black vest with short black hair and a beard, "Who's asking?" The man said.

"Joker, leader of the Phantom Thieves of Heart." Joker said, as he said that several glasses broke and the music cut off with a scratch, causing both Joker and the man to look over at the DJ and saw him standing back up and fumble around for another disk.

The man looked back to Joker, "Well, I didn't think I'd get someone like you around here. I'm Junior... So why are you here?" Junior said.

"I'm here looking for an ear in the underground." Joker said, "The common folk only have so much information so I'm in need of an informant."

Junior blinked at Joker for a moment, "Heh, listen buddy, anything my clients say is confidential." Junior said, "So unless you're buying my men to talk I can't say a thing."

"Or..." Joker said, "I could steal your heart and you'll likely spew every bit of information you've collected over the years."

This caused every henchman in the room to reach for their weapons, "Listen, you've clearly gotten used to you getting your way, but you coming in here and threatening me like that ain't gonna fly." Junior warned, "So I'd recommend leaving before you have trouble on your hands. And my men have their Aura's unlocked just so you know."

Joker just smirked, "Good, then we don't have to worry about any permanent harm." Joker said pulling out Lupin in pistol form and pointing it in the air and firing.

"We?" Junior asked, right before the door were broken down by Queen driving Johanna through them, her face covered in blue flames.

Queen revved her Persona once and glared at the men around her, "Should have taken the easy way." Queen warned them.

"Let 'em have it Queen!" Joker shouted.

[The next day: Patch]

[Rose Xiao Long house]

Yang was once more bored and browsing channels.

"The new Model-"

"A full meal for only forty-"

"Come try our Continental-"

"The Phantom Thieves were-"

Yang changed the channel back to the news the moment she heard Phantom Thieves, "Dad! Ruby!" She called turning up the volume of the TV.

"-Last night in Vale." Lisa Lavender said as she held a mic up and stood in front of a bar that had it's doors broken down, "According to eye witness reports, two members of the Phantom Thieves made an appearance at the local club known as Juniors. A man known for renting out men for mercenary purposes."

Ruby practically appeared on the couch next to Yang and Tai sprinted in behind her.

"Because of this we've learned the identities of two of their members." Lisa continued, "The male, and leader of the Phantom Thieves, goes by Joker and was the one whose mask was identified by in their broadcast six months ago from Atlas. Joker's companion at the time was a woman known as Queen, whom arrived no the scene on a motorcycle that disappeared as her mask appeared, however Queen's face was marred by a veil of flames on her face during the time the motorcycle was there. Sadly images of the two Phantom Thieves were of poor quality and according to officials, too blurry to make a proper identification on them."

"Rats." Yang grumbled, she was hoping she could figure out who the Thieves were so she could see to it that she'd get her request handled.

"Those who were not scared off by the Phantom Thieves claimed that Joker was seeking information from Junior, information that one could guess can be found in a location such as this." Lisa continued, "Furthermore people had noticed that the Phantom Thieves seemed to be consciously avoiding casualties of both Juniors mercenaries and the patrons. Though what information the Phantom Thieves were after remains unknown, we can only assume they are making an effort to go after another corrupt official based on their actions in Atlas. In my personal opinion I hope they target known criminal mastermind Roman Torchwick or the local White Fang chapter leader due to the recent attack of the Atlesian express."

"They're in Vale." Tai muttered, "Dang, I thought they'd be in Atlas longer seeing as everyone there has a stick up their butts."

"Dad!" Ruby cried out.

"Trust me Ruby, go to Atlas and you'll know what I mean." Tai said rustling Ruby's hair.

"Daaaaaad!" Ruby whined.

"Welp." Yang said standing up, "I think it's time I start my warm-up for the day."

"Good luck." Ruby said looking to her legs to see that Zwei had also chosen to watch the T.V. Apparently he was interested in the Phantom Thieves as well.

"Thanks Rubes." Yang said walking to her room to switch into her training outfit, it was then she noticed her Scroll was open and she had a message.

For starters, she knew for a fact she didn't have a contact known as 'Oracle', but when she read the message she nearly dropped her Scroll.

'Yang Xiao Long, six months ago you requested that we steal the heart of your mother Raven Branwen. During that time we've collected information on her, however there is information we cannot collect, information that is likely in the mind of your uncle Qrow Branwen. If you wish for your mother's distorted desires to be removed we'll need your help as well- We'll contact you again in a month to decide on a location for you to give us the information you've collected. -Oracle of the Phantom Thieves.'

Yang stared at her Scroll in shock before started to reply, "How did you find out who I am?" She said as she texted before hitting send, only for a message to pop up instead.

'We're sorry, but the number you're trying to contact is not in service or does not exist. Please check to make sure you've entered the correct number.'

Yang blinked at her Scroll in surprise, "How..?" Yang muttered before shaking her head, getting changed, and stepping outside, "Don't bother worrying about it for now Yang." She said to herself as she approached one of the training dummies and wrapped her fingers in boxing tape, "Just focus on working out and passing the Beacon Entrance exam."

Yang took a deep breath as she approached the dummy, shooing a blue butterfly off the dummy before she gave it a powerful uppercut.

[Atlas]

"The Phantom Thieves are in Vale!?" Weiss shouted in her room as she had stepped out of the living room where she had seen the news broadcast, "Calm down Weiss." She said to herself, "Think of it as a chance to take them down when you've made it to Beacon. And once you're team leader you can have your team hunt down the Phantom Thieves."

Weiss began chuckling evilly as she began formulating a plan

[Vale police station- Gregory's Office]

"Yes Miss Schnee." Gregory said as he paced his office, "I know what I said, and because the Phantom Thieves are in Vale I will begin my search for them and I will search for them for as long as I possibly can. But please, it's late on your side of the world, get some rest, it's not healthy to stress like this."

"Very well Mister Ashe, goodnight." Winter said as she hung up, causing the Dove Faunus to sigh.

"The Phantom Thieves are an issue of mine as well Winter." Gregory said as he looked down at the blurry shot of Joker that was on his computer monitor, "Whenever I look at them I feel such anger, such hatred, and yet such regret... Why?" Gregory then looked out the window into the street's of Vale, "Who are you Joker? And... how do I know you?"

 **[[]]**

 **Well folks that's the chapter, just a bit of a set up so next time I can slip into the RWBY story next chapter.**

 **Anyway sorry if it's short but I'm not gonna tempt fate by making a long chapter considering how hard it was just to make it to my computer today... Plus I got 6 Games for Christmas and I want to play every one of them.**

 **Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday's folks!**


	22. Chapter 21

**Okay so I'm gonna be rushing this chapter a bit today folks, as you may have noticed I have removed Reading Phantom Thieves from this site due to the fact the CUnt's have targeted the story, thankfully you can still find it over on A03 where we DON'T have to worry about asshole like that spending all their free time being assholes.**

 **I'd like to thank DPLxBeAsTxSnIpE for giving me the warning about the CU.**

 **Also I'd like to thank TimelessDreamerNeo for creating what you're about to read at the start of this chapter. I checked the rules by the way and didn't see jack shit about music and lyrics... So if there are rules about that let me know, fast... Which sadly has been removed due to the fact I ended up glossing over that part, and due to sudden heat on my ass it will not show up on this site for quite some time... Possibly never.**

 **So I hope you all enjoy (And go piss off the CU for me, I just got banned for showing them the respect they showed me. 1 curse word apparently is a sign for them to treat people like 10 year olds and blocking all of them out of hate and they call me a coward, like hell I'm gonna give them respect.)**

 **[[]]**

[Dreamspace]

Salem and Ozpin sat at a chessboard, the pieces unable to be moved as they stared at it.

"Legends. Stories scattered through time. Mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, byproducts, of a forgotten past." Salem mused to herself, causing Ozpin to sigh as he recalled that when Salem wasn't feeling pure rage at him in their conjoined dreams, she tended to monologue her taunts to him, "Man, born from dust, was strong, wise, and resourceful, but he was born into an unforgiving world. An inevitable darkness — creatures of destruction,the creatures of Grimm, set their sights on man and all of his creations. These forces clashed, and it seemed the darkness was intent on returning man's brief existence to the void."

Salem smirked as the board began to show an image of Vale as a Black Pawn, her side's color, slid one space across the board, "However, even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change, and in time, man's passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity led them to the tools that would help even the odds." Salem continued, "This power was appropriately named 'Dust'. Nature's wrath in hand, man lit their way through the darkness, and in the shadow's absence came strength, civilization, and most importantly, even the most brilliant lights eventually flicker and die. And when they are gone... darkness will return."

The image shown on the board revealed an orange haired man Ozpin recognized as Roman Torchwick, who had a small group of thugs that worked for Junior with him, "So you may prepare your guardians, build your monuments to a so-called "free world", but take heed... there will be no victory in strength." Salem taunted.

Now that Salem was done talking, Ozpin chose to speak up as he manipulated the image on the board to the inside of the shop, showing the backside of Ruby Rose, "But perhaps victory is in the simpler things that you've long forgotten. Things that require a smaller, more honest soul." Ozpin said.

"Perhaps." A new voice said, causing the image on the board to fade as a set of Red Chess Pieces appeared on the side of the board, both Salem and Ozpin turned their heads in surprise toward the source of the voice, a thin man in a black turtleneck shirt and black pants held up by a belt with a pair of black dress shoes, he was wearing a mask that covered three fourths of his face, with a quarter on his left eye being orange and appearing like a butterfly's wing, and his brown hair was tied into a ponytail, "Yet, even with an innocent soul, can they change fate with closed eyes, blind to the true spark of humanity? Perhaps something more is needed. Wisdom and Strength may hold power, but from time to time you need not a warrior or a sage. Sometimes all you need is a Fool."

Salem slammed her hands onto the chessboard, the pieces not moving, "Who are you!?" Salem demanded in fury.

The man simply cross his legs, "My name... You may call me Philemon." He said, "Now then, let us see how this plays out."

[From Dust Till Dawn]

Ruby sighed as she looked at the magazine in her hands, but sadly even with her music blocking out all other sound she couldn't focus on the magazine like she usually could in similar situations.

'Why am I still thinking about that tarot reading?' Ruby thought to herself unable to actually look at the magazine, 'A big change has got to be Yang leaving for Beacon, but why would that cause me to look at everything differently and why would I be a symbol of hope?'

At that moment Ruby felt a hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn around, "Yes?" Ruby asked after the man motioned for her to take her headphones off.

"I said, put your hands in the air, now." The Henchman demanded.

"Are you... Robbing me?" Ruby asked, 'This can't be the big change... Can it?' Ruby thought afterwards.

"Yes." The man said annoyed.

[]

Joker stood at the rooftops waiting for Torchwick to make his escape, "He's not in any rush it seems." Joker mused looking down over at the store, the other Phantom Thieves covering the other rooftops he might escape to or pass.

At that moment he saw a girl in a red hood launch out the window with one of Juniors thugs under her feet, the girl landed gracefully and deployed a large scythe as she turned around.

 _'Heh, I appreciate the girls taste in weaponry.'_ Came the voice of one of Joker's Persona's, the Pale Rider, more commonly known as the Horseman of Death.

'The scythe is a hard weapon to use really.' Joker thought, 'She must have had a good teacher.' As he watched Ruby take down the remaining thugs that came after her he chuckled, 'Momentum based combat it seems, might not be all she has though.'

Joker watched as Roman fired a flare from his cane that the girl dodge, but it kicked up a large cloud of dust that covered his retreat, sprinting to a ladder that he proceeded to climb up as the cloud vanished.

 _'Pitiful.'_ Arsene muttered as he watched with Joker, _'He had the perfect chance to hide and yet he chose to continue running in visible places while she's still capable of seeing him.'_

"Skull, Roman's heading your way." Joker informed his ally thanks to Oracles connection, "Everyone, gather up at the rooftop below Skull."

"Cancel that!" Oracle called out, "There's a Huntress approaching at high speeds, and it's that Goodwitch lady."

Joker nodded at that. He remembered Glynda Goodwitch, seeing as she took down a criminal with Aura and accidentally smashed the front of the cafe, which he chose to name Leblanc's in honor of the cafe he used to live at. Thankfully he wasn't opened yet but she at least apologized and repaired the damage she had made.

"Got it." Joker said as he jumped from a higher roof, "Skull wait there, everyone else rally to Mona. After Skull and I incapacitate Roman I'll get Glynda to focus on me so you all can escape."

"We're not repeating my sister's Palace are we?" Queen demanded. She was NOT in a hurry to repeat what was probably their riskiest plan in their entire career.

"No, I'll slip into Mementos once I've gotten some distance from her." Joker said as a Bullhead arrived to pick up Torchwick.

 _'I'll take back my comment. The man was making his way to an escape vehicle.'_ Arsene muttered.

Quickly enough Glynda arrived and began to attack the Bullhead as Skull leaned over the building on the other side of the Bullhead, "Ready Skull?" Joker asked as he took a step back.

"Hell yeah!" Skull shouted as he took several steps back before running and jumping off the building toward the open door of the bullhead.

[]

Cinder smirked as she blocked the bullets coming from the red hooded girl, as if her measly gun could hope to harm her, the RIGHTFUL Fall Maiden, when the red hooded girl paused to reload Cinder lifted her arm to swipe-

"Knock knock!" A male voice said behind her, causing Cinder to gasp and quickly cover her face with a dark glass mask and turn around just in time to be face with a pair of combat boots that planted themselves in her face, throwing her out of the Bullhead.

[]

Ruby gasped as she saw a masked blonde guy wielding a Mistrailian club drop kick the woman out of the bullhead, which caught the Huntress beside her by surprise as well, then another figure landed beside the skull masked boy.

"I was hoping to get Torchwick, but his ally ain't so bad." The skull masked boy said as the woman from the Bullhead stood up, revealing a cracked glass mask on her face.

"Nice job Skull." the new figure said, causing Ruby to gasp.

"Y-You're the leader of the Phantom Thieves!" Ruby shouted pointing to the man known as Joker thanks to his stunt at Juniors.

Joker turned to Ruby and the Huntress beside her, "Thanks for distracting her." Joker said as he pulled out a pistol, "You'll make a good Huntress one day."

"Phantom Thieves." The woman said, then began chuckling, "I've been looking for you, I've got an offer for you." She continued as she stood up, then opened her palms to conjure flames "I want you to join me, the power you have to change people's personalities to do whatever you-" She was cut off as a gunshot impacted her leg.

"Sorry." Joker said, "The Phantom Thieves only target those who deserve it, the corrupt, the men and women who abuse their positions and power."

The woman growled as she backed toward the edge of the roof, "You're going to regret this." the woman threatened.

Joker simply smirked, "You would not believe how many different ways a person could say that." Joker said taking aim with his gun. "And how many of them we took out already." He knew that one wasn't completely true, but nothing wrong with psyching an enemy out.

The woman the jumped off the roof, only to catch the bullhead as it flew by and off into the night sky.

"Skull." Joker said.

"Got it." Skull shouted grabbing his mask, "After her! Captain Kidd!" The Thief shouted tearing off his mask, though his face was then concealed by blue flames as a massive pirate ghost on a pirate ship appeared with Skull jumping on the bow of the ship and it raced off.

Ruby and the Huntress then looked at Joker as he looked at both of the girls, "What's your name kid?" Joker asked.

"R-Ruby Rose." Ruby said nervously.

"Ruby Rose." Joker mused, "I wish you luck being a Huntress." With that the man jumped off the edge of the roof, with both Ruby and the Huntress running over to the edge to try and see him, only for them not to see him.

"What the-?" The Huntress asked before sighing and looking to Ruby, "I'm going to need you to follow me Miss Rose."

"Uh oh." Ruby said gulping.

[Dreamscape]

"The Phantom Thieves are your pawns aren't they?" Salem accused Philemon.

"Such a cruel accusation." Philemon said, "They simply hold the potential of humanity within themselves. I only gave one of them a little push."

"One of them?" Ozpin asked as Philemon rubbed his fingers around the crown of a red Queen.

"Indeed." Philemon said taking his hand off the queen and pressing it against a white pawn, to which he softly rubbed the head. "Besides pawn is anything but a derogatory term. Give it enough guidance and even a pawn can outmatch both Kings and Queens."

As he took his hands off the pawn it shimmered in the image of Ruby Rose looking nervous at being lead by Glynda.

"What are you planning?" Ozpin asked looking away from the chessboard back to Philemon, only to find him missing, looking back down at the chessboard he noticed a small blue butterfly resting atop the Pawn that held Ruby's image.

 **[[]]**

 **Well then, that took more time than I wanted.**

 **To think it took a group of assholes to get me off Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (Damn good game with better free-running and parkour than Assassin's Creed in my opinion- Yeah I said it, big whoop, wanna fight about?) and actually get to writing shit.**

 **Granted I beat Sands of Time a couple nights ago but I found myself replaying it last night to see if I could do it with less actual deaths now that I was actually good at the game.**

 **Anyway you'll no longer find Reading Remnant's Phantom Thieves on this site so please go to A03 to read it from now on.**

 **I hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see you (on this site) a while later because I suspect I'm gonna be working on the Reading for a while.**


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